Mid Year Check In

 Hello,

Boy has it been a year.

I'll be honest, when I originally started this blog it was called Monday Night Gaming. That was the night our boardgame group met. The same boardgame group I would try desperately to convert into a War Game group. That never took quite right but over time that group grew and changed and adapted. It would eventually become the group that met at the Hobby Shop I worked at and it would eventually more or less come to a screeching halt with Covid. Now having moved close to 40 minutes further, changed careers and started a family, I find myself missing the regular club nights quite a bit. I still find myself buying and painting and planning but the follow thru (which to be honest was never really all there) is now even sparser. This will not be an exciting post (fewer and further between now) but its a post I'd like to take the time to write. Lets talk about my relationship to the hobby and board games. 

I've always loved table top games. The tactile feel, the dice chucking, the camaraderie. What I don't love is having mountains of figures and terrain to store, set up, transport. I've been an avid boardgamer since I discovered that board games weren't just Monopoly back in 2011. Board Games can be a lot of things, and don't be surprised if I talk about them more on this blog for reasons that hopefully make sense as this post drones on. Board games can be quick to set up, quick to play, self contained. My wife likes board games, though she'll occasionally humor me with a wargame (and has been bugging me to get Shatterpoint and MCP back on the table) 

I've found great joy in a lot of these games. Origins game fair, (our second trip was a month ago) reminds me of my first trip to Fall-in. Coming home with 30 to 40 new board games and actually playing them all before the summer ends is not something you can do with Wargames. I'd be luck to paint a warband for a game before summer is over most years. I've become smitten with big experience boardgames like John Company or Arcs. I've delighted in solo games like For Northwood, Kinfire Delve, or Resist.  Boardgames are just frankly so much more accessible and that means the world for getting them to the table.

I had all but taken my hands out of the wargame pot though I'd still buy the odd kit here and there mostly for games like MCP. I balk at the cost of some of these now thinking things like "thats a whole game" for the price of one box of figures. There are a few things I've committed to though. I bought some Wargames Atlantic knights for barons war, which in turn caused me to dig all of my First Crusades project out and actually paint some Saracens. 

I found myself looking at the pre-order for two major GW releases though. First was AOS4. I looked at the beautiful skaven models, thought hard about how I never painted my Dominion Stormcast. I had wanted to convert them a bit, make them more low fantasy, and just had never actually taken cutter to sprue. I said to myself "eh, as much as AOS has been one of the only games I've played regularly, I dont really need this" I promptly opened my Dominion box and started assembling models I already had. In about a week I've built and painted most of the Spearhead force for Stormcast. Opting for a super simple scheme to plow through them quickly. 

I found myself looking at the new Hive Secundus box for Necromunda as well. I ended up looking at that and thinking, it doesn't really fit on my "schedule" of goals. I opted to take a harder look at Mordheim. A game myself and a few of the gamers I still regularly talk to have been eyeing like hawks. I dug through my stls and found some files to print. More or less all stuff I already owned. 

A lot of this hobby spending year has been pushed hard on to board games. Big experience games like John Co, or Wonderlands War. A lot of my hobby spending has been on Kickstarters. Mostly board games but I did cave on the Song of Ice and Fire Tactics campaign. Time spent looking in hobby shops has resulted in going home to start on projects already purchased. The allure of the collection is still there but it's been a huge motivator to dig out a pile of kits I've already spent the money on and revisit them as though it were brand new. 

A decade spent working in a hobby shop changes your perspective on buying. Kits are purchased on launch to avoid them not being available when you want them. Stuff never expires but it does go out of print. I definitely consider myself privileged in that regard. As I find it harder and harder to find places to store these things though, it has really caused me to look at what I purchase now, or save for later. As I've moved out of the hobby as a career its caused me to reassess what I "need" vs "want" at a very different pace

I've talked about it before but I hate taking photos, its most of what slows this blog to a crawl. The follow thru, sure but the photos are what stop the starting. I find myself in a bit of a hobby renaissance again where I'm painting regularly and excited about figures again. Coming soon (or maybe never depending) I'll post another update to the goals but you can also look forward to

Baron's War Outremer and the First Crusades
Age of Sigmar Spearhead and slow grow
Mordheim
Some Boardgame Coverage

You can also look forward to continued poor impulse control. Some habits never die. Since drafting this original post (1 month ago) I ended up getting the AOS4 box as well as the Hive Secundus box. I've also sadly bought into the Wargames Atlantic 10mm samurai range (under the age old "but i only need one box" lie)

I do want to continue to use this blog for me but I definitely recognize that without pretty pictures my musings are a little dry. I just want stuff to show you and I promise it is coming. As a life update we're now less than a month off from our first child so we will see how that goes when it comes to hobby. 

Thanks as always

Some Book Keeping - An Update to the 2024 Hobby Goals

 Hello,

Since we last spoke I've done an enormous amount of stuff with very little to check off these tasks. As we last left it on the blog it looked something like this

Paint Legions Imperalis Army
Print and Paint Legions Imperalis City Table
Play at least 3 games of Legions Imperalis with fully painted armies and terrain
Print and play Full Spectrum Dominance
Paint 2 Complete Factions For Crisis Protocol and play at least 3 games
Paint 2 Complete Forces for Shatterpoint and play at least 3 games
Play Don't Look Back
Finish Boarding Action Table
Play Country Road Z
Play Spectre (or another modern style game)
Try Dead by Lead
Try Hobgoblin
Finish at least 2 Cabinet Pieces
Play Test of Honor at least 3 games
Play Firefight with Veermyn Army
End the year with a sub 200 score

Since this original posting I've tweaked some things. First of all, I'm going to get rid of two of these goals. Full Spectrum Dominance (which i have yet to invest more than purchasing stls into) and Dead by Lead (which occupies the same real estate as a few other things on the list) are both gone.

I've obviously added a few goals as well.

 Paint Legions Imperalis Army
Print and Paint Legions Imperalis City Table
Play at least 3 games of Legions Imperalis with fully painted armies and terrain
Paint 2 Complete Factions For Crisis Protocol and play at least 3 games
Paint 2 Complete Forces for Shatterpoint and play at least 3 games
Play Don't Look Back
Finish Boarding Action Table
Play Country Road Z
Play Spectre (or another modern style game)
Try Hobgoblin
Finish at least 2 Cabinet Pieces
Play Test of Honor at least 3 games
Play Firefight with Veermyn Army
End the year with a sub 200 score

Added
Paint 1k Points of Word Bearers for Horus Heresy
Play Horus Heresy
Finish a 2k list for Old World and try the rules
Try Kill Team
Play a Fantasy Skirmish Game
Try Guildball
Play This is not a Test

Some of these are fairly obvious to most but I wanted to add a hair of context. I always wanted to try guild ball and went as far as to get the kickoff set and a few others but when SFG shitcanned the game I lost interest and punted (ha) it on at a flea market. Since then they've relaunched the game and have released Kickoff as a free stl and print copy. I've printed the two teams and some accessories and am almost done with one of them. I have a game vaguely scheduled for 2 weeks from now so this should be a slam dunk. I made it a goal because it seems like a nice easy win and it will prevent me from painting 11/12 figures and then never trying the game.

Horus Heresy has been on my own list since the launch of Age of Darkness. I've been reading the novels and Pauls been talking the game up. We played a Zone Mortalis style game of One Page Rules today and I used all painted stuff and am actually getting reasonably close to 1k already. I'm pretty excited for this one. 

I dug all of my fantasy stuff out of my moms house and brought it home to pour through. I'm fairly confident I have more than 2k of dwarves and am probably pretty close on Tomb Kings. Enough to get started at least. I figure these figures should double for Hobgoblin later.

I want to try either Song of Blades or Thud and Blunder this year just because. I also just picked up something called Torch and Shield but more on that another time. This is not a test has always ranked on my "i want to play this game" radar and this year I may have another friend interested in playing. 

Finally how is the current stuff coming?

I have a little over 1.5k of both Solar Aux and Imperial Fists done for Legions Imp. The Boarding action table is totally printed, magnetized and test paints are done. We used the terrain today and I'm super happy with how it came out. 

I played don't look back today as well but forgot to grab pictures. I was a little underwhelmed but am going to give it a few more goes. The first edition was a lot of fun but I think some bad luck made the wrong rolls happen too soon which led to a lackluster game. 

To wrap, heres a few photos of the heresy stuff.

Legions Imperalis (1) - First game

 So in normal blog tradition, I hit the ground running. Below are some photos from our first outing with Legions Imperialis. I'm going to pic dump and then add my thoughts and opinions at the end.

The Details - 

We played a 4 player, 3k a side game. We had Fists (me) and Blood Angels v Thousand Sons, and a combined army of Death Guard and Iron Warriors. There was a mix of everything the rules have to offer. Highlights of the game include warning the Tsons player that we had AA batteries, him forgetting and then getting blasted out of the sky. My knight blowing up a whole building to get to one command stand. The BA allied warhound titan shooting a laser up the table and wiping out most of the IW in one go and the BA Kratos tanks leveling a building to "help" his assault marines win a close combat. We started at 10 and wrapped on turn two at 2pm

 

The Good - 

So the game was a lot of fun. It felt very combined arms and it was a good way to spend an afternoon. We challenged one another with a game day planned on the day of release and everyone had paint on everything with only one player not having a completely painted force. Ironically our Tsons player finished all his infantry which never left his wip rhinos. It was so rewarding to actually get my force finished and it was great to get the game on the table. I'm super happy with the terrain i contributed (need to paint still) (more details on the army and terrain at a later date)

The less than Good - 

GW reccomends 3k as the standard size for a game. The way break points and morale work, 3k is a ton to keep track of. Comments on the game during clean up focused mostly around, "it'll go way quicker when we know what we're doing and with less players" which I agree with. The game is surprisingly crunchier than I was expecting which is good but was a lot to keep track of. My quick reference sheets helped but i need to slim them down significantly before another game.

 

Whats next - 

Theres a new book on the way with more options. We've scheduled a game for 2k, 1 v 1 for next time and I plan to add to this. I may run solar aux instead though, I'm not sure yet. For the blog I'll try and take some nice glamour shots of the army and terrain along with a guide on how I painted it all at some point. For now I'm taking a break from this project to paint something totally different as a palette cleanser. 

I wanted to do a bit of a yearly preview type teaser photo but to be honest it's mostly what we discussed in the year ahead post. Theres 2 big projects I've made some very real headway on but am not quite ready to share yet, though stuffs coming soon.

Boarding Actions Build Log (1)

 I've always maintained that I like the idea of 40k even if I don't adore the game itself. The idea of a 2k army is daunting and expensive for my ADD riddled brain. I have been flirting with the idea of a zone mortalis board for a long time (see earlier posts on this very blog) but to be honest with the new Boarding Actions Game mode and terrain I'm probably scrapping that terrain. You can google Boarding actions to look at the pretty pile of sprues but in short, the idea is "lil fights in spaceships" 500 Points, limited options, quicker games.

I wasn't super interested in the box itself until I stumbled across this originally on reddit. Orkitect Studio has produced a 3d printable version of the board. Thinking I could save a bit of money, I opted to start printing.

When these tiles work they are absolutely incredible. There's a whole system in place for magnets and wires to make the tiles pop together, there's options for all magnets or snap fits for no magnets and the designer has already modeled and released some of the neat unique bits from one of the expansions. 

Cue the sound effect of the record scratch

I wrote the above in march of 2023. Its why "finish boarding actions board" made my list two years in a row. Because I'm lazy. In my defense this time I have some legitimate concerns.

The text you're reading now replaces a pretty lengthy paragraph I had written back in march and the keen eyed among you may notice the pieces are made of two different materials if you look close. One of the issues I had in 2023 was that my prusa finally took a crap and blobbed up. I spent the better part of a week disassembling and what have you to clear jams and scrape plastic. I finally came to the determination it was gonna need a new thermistor, then a new hot end, then this then that. I tore the thing apart and chipped away on repairing it for a few months where it sat unused next to my Mars 3. An idea sparked and I decided to start this project on the Mars. I won't bore you with too many details but needless to say, it was not the right medium for this project. I spent a small fortune in failed prints and broken resin and fails and cleanings. I said I'd fix the printer but with my day job (fixing 2d printers) I never had the drive to actually finish it. Around Christmas I ran some numbers and made a decision to replace the device with a new Bambu P1S. There will be more on that at a later date, but the main take away here is this

I went from this

to this in about a week.

So what you see now, is a whole boarding actions table. I purchased a cardboard mat from one of the starter sets and have since this photo glued in all the magnets. Next up is painting and wire on the column pieces.

Don't Look Back (1) - Unboxing

 Originally backed in April through Black Site Studios Backroom system, I just received my Don't Look Back second edition tier 2 bundle. I believe this one was originally supposed to deliver around Halloween but as these things go it's a little delayed. Unfortunately I'm neck deep in Legions Imperalis so I went ahead, opened and took inventory and already put all of this back into the box and onto the shelf of shame. For now though here is a quick look at whats coming down the road. 

First of all we have the new second edition book. You can see its quite a bit thicker than the original. It comes in a neat little slipcase and it's super pretty. There is quite a bit of eye candy and the production quality is lovely as always with BSS. 

Included in the starter bundle type deal is the Killer and Hero expansions. Like all of the Don't look back stuff, these are supplied in VHS cases. The theming is super cool but to be honest, kinda wasteful. I love the art work and aesthetic but the boxes arent deep enough to store the figures and all of these cases just take up space. 

You can see the high quality of the figures and components. I'm looking forward to getting into these ASAP. 

Included in the bundle I purchased are these five expansions. Each containing a few figures and a card or two with a few more rules.

The bundle included some stretch goal type stuff that included alt sculpts of the heros as well as a few odds and ends including some 3d weapon tokens.

There's a fun little map and a mdf measuring cleaver.

Finally the mdf terrain that comes with the set

All in all, I'm super excited to get stuck into this stuff but it will be a while before I can get really dug in. There was also a preorder bonus figure and not to mention all the stuff I picked up for 1st ed.

The End of the Year Looms Large and I've Accomplished Very Little - (This is the part where I claim to try better next time)

 Hello

What a year we've had.

Lets dive right into the list so you can follow along at home with the excuses and then well talk about what happened and whats coming next

End the year with a sub 200 Golf Score
Begin the Lord of the Rings Ringbearer Campaign
Play Spectre Ops
Print and Paint two sets of Team Fortress 2 Figures
Play To The Strongest with painted 10mm figures
Finally Try Age of Hannibal
Play a game of A Song of Ice and Fire with a painted Baratheon Force
Finish 2k points of Old Dominion for Conquest and play a game
Completely Paint 2 complete factions for Crisis Protocol
Finally Try Moonstone
Finally Try Mad Maximilian
Play at least one game of Necromunda
Try Necropolis28
Try Mordheim
Play a Game of War of the Ring
Play a game of Horus Heresy
Finish at least one Cabinet piece (resin probably)
Play both Sludge and Turnip
Try the new edition of Kill Team
Play Never Mind the Billhooks
Attend one tourney or play event
Finish my Death ray Designs City Board

Try Verrotwood
Finish my 3d printed Boarding Action board
Try One Page Rules Age of Fantasy Skirmish
Play a game of Brawl Arcane 28
Sculpt Print and Paint something of my own
Try Conquest First Blood
Play Deadzone 

(The Post Adepticon BSS inspired update)
Play Dont Look Back
Play Lunar
Play Demonship
Play Firefight
Play Violent Dark

 

 So I learned a ton about myself etc. Honestly I sorta knew I wouldn't get it all done but I'm a little disappointed in myself as usual.

The first big elephant in the room is shame golf. I bought too much again. As of writing this I'm sitting on 1029 points. Now I know that sounds like too much. Its all Legions Imperalis stuff and the associated penalty for buying it at launch. There's a snowballs chance in hell that you see some of this before the end of the year but as usual let's not hold our breath

War of the Ring, Lord of the Rings, Age of Hannibal, To the Strongest, Song of Ice and Fire, Verrotwood, Necropolis, Brawl Arcane, Conquest (small and large) and Never Mind the Billhooks and Mad Maximillian were all never started. I mean I have a boat load of 10mm ancients in desperate need of basing (and I ordered the correct bases) and I have a load of LOTR stuff but I just never got it to the table. The other games were either never started at all (necropolis) or simply never touched (ASOIAF)

Don't Look Back was originally slated for an October release and I'm still waiting on a tracking number for my batch of stuff. Mantic Firefight is still very high on my list but I have yet to start painting. Spectre is a bit of a bug because as excited as I was for the new edition, the price of shipping kept me away.

All this said I'd love to tell you I have a better plan for this year but honestly I think the move is to just reassess and pick less goals. If' I somehow manage to complete these I'll add more but I set the bar way too high for more reasons I'll sum up at the end. So here we go;

 

Paint Legions Imperalis Army
Print and Paint Legions Imperalis City Table
Play at least 3 games of Legions Imperalis with fully painted armies and terrain
Print and play Full Spectrum Dominance
Paint 2 Complete Factions For Crisis Protocol and play at least 3 games
Paint 2 Complete Forces for Shatterpoint and play at least 3 games
Play Don't Look Back
Finish Boarding Action Table
Play Country Road Z
Play Spectre (or another modern style game)
Try Dead by Lead
Try Hobgoblin
Finish at least 2 Cabinet Pieces
Play Test of Honor at least 3 games
Play Firefight with Veermyn Army
End the year with a sub 200 score

As time allows, finish goals not listed from previous year

I had an interesting year. I accepted a new position in our Training Department at work and have been transitioning to a very different role. I spent most of the year with my prusa down and out of commission. I spent a large chunk of the time very ineffectively printing boarding action stuff on a resin printer and to be frank wasted a lot of print and hobby time trying to make that project work. I tried to pick a few projects last year based off a potential interest and ended up shooting myself in the foot a bit. This time around I tried to pick a good mix or projects that I either have stuff in progress or already finished for that will allow me to mix it up a bit. The idea being to try and get in about a game a month.

The other elephant in the room is Origins. I attended Origins this year with my wife and got wildly more into board games. I began using a tracking app and played approximately 150 board games between origins and the end of the year. We have a group regularly playing Root (which is sort of like the best of both worlds with its wide faction choice) as well as not one but two legacy games being played regularly with friends of ours.

I want to hit the ground running next year, though the new job includes a lot more travel. I need to start by cleaning up the desk and boxing things up and clearing space. Between now and the end of the year, I'd like to be able to play a starter box game of Legions Imperalis. We have a 2 v 2 game currently scheduled for Jan. 21. I also have a Bambu printer on the way which should be put immediately to work on the Imperalis table before being put to work on the boarding action table. 

Figure wise obviously we have tiny wardollies doing fights in the 30th millenium but I want to crack into Don't Look Back as soon as it arrives. Try to strike while the irons hot. I have a list of Veerymyn to paint for firefight and have been chipping away on the AMG games stuff. We probably won't go to Adepticon this year in favor of origins which should cut down a bit on the spending and accumulating of figures. 

I will say, despite the numbers being abysmal. I do actually feel like I turned down quite a few figure impulse buys. Theres were several times during the year where I was at the FLGS or had a cart full of stuff online where I said "Its just gonna end up in shrink and on next years list" and I put it back. Legions is the exception as I have been waiting for this one to drop. 

Sorry for the absolute wall of text but this blog is for me and I wanted to get it on paper in some attempt to get back at it. Expect more but not necessarily good photos from me next year but for right now, none. 

If you hear from me before January it will be with a last minute drive for finished LIMP stuff and if you don't have a wonderful holiday and a happy new year and we'll see you in 2024. 

Demonship (1) - It's Here!

 As I mentioned in the Adepticon wrap-up. Demonship is a new "microgame" from MalevMinis and Blacksite studio. Its basically a sci-fi solo dungeon crawl. I managed to get a set of the terrain preordered at Adepticon and it arrived on Friday. I've got it all built now and wanted to show it off. 

 All in all it was a relatively straight-forward build. I accidentally left out a couple magnets in the "palete" looking bit. I got the whole thing built in an evening and a half and didn't really count the magnets until I realized I had already glued it together. 

 

The "alpha" rulebook I picked up at the show is neat and I am looking forward to trying the game out but since building this set the "finished" game is now available for pre-order HERE

 The set is great. Super modular, its a blast just showing it off and setting up little rooms. I was super excited to see it came with magnets and the whole thing stores right inside the base. No room for figures but I think the alpha book may fit though I haven't tried yet.

I'll check back when I've gotten the game on the table but for now, this was a reasonable build and it seriously checks my "minatures are cute" checkbox where small stuff is just sorta neat.