Some Musings

I wanted to take just a moment to talk about where I am in the hobby these days. I know I'm very prone to the wargames butterfly syndrome as we so affectionately refer to it. In the last month I think I've started (and then stopped) a dozen or so projects. I'm not sure if this is a "real-life" thing or a "quarantine-life" thing this time. I've been spending more time outside of the hobby lately and just enjoying the hobby when I can but I don't know if that's because of the strange times or not. Theres two games in particular that have inspired a lot of thoughts. Throughout all my ups and downs in the hobby lately, one thing has been consistent. I've been painting a lot of 40k stuff.

40k

Way way back in the day, my very first introduction to the hobby was a Games Workshop in the mall. Back in middle school a friends parents took him and I to the mall and I got to try out 40k in a demo ran by the store. I loved the hobby immediately but never got a chance to get in to it until I was an adult with a disposable income. Throughout the years, games have come and gone and I've tried what feels like thousands of games but I keep coming back off and on and collecting Games Workshop games and models.

Anyone who knows me knows my obsession with Lord of the Rings but I've also held on to my 40k stuff, buying selling and trading things here and there over the years. When 8th edition rolled around I had more or less stopped playing with gw stuff but had dipped my toes with bloodbowl and shadow war. 8th edition opened a floodgate and I bought quite a few boxes in that time. Like all game nights, we played heavy for a few months than waned away and moved on to other games. With stuff like necromunda Ive bought a few boxed of things that I thought could do double duty (Genestealer Cults) and a few things just to paint up (Tor Garadon)

With the recent announcement of ninth edition and the more recent article talking about combat patrol (the small points format) I wanna get back into 40k again. The new starter box has necrons in it and thats something I flirted with back when 8th dropped. I'm basically starting from scratch here but I've got a smattering of models painted already (thankfully they paint so quickly) and have been chipping away on them here and there. We've got a group that wants to get meeting soon, so barring some state-wide shutdown, when the new edition drops we'll be starting with some Combat Patrol.

Historicals

I've been weaving my way in and out of historical gaming for years, lately on the "out" of things. I've talked quite at length over all of my mediums about my love of the Punic Wars and my eventual desire to run some sort of grand campaign with them. It's still something I really want to do, to that end I ordered the last wave of stuff (celts mostly) and build a couple of army lists and then sent them off to be painted. I'm expecting the second half of things back at some point and then the arduous task of basing begins but I'm really excited for a multitude of reasons. In short, aside from being an era I love, the collection was purchased, painted and will be based with one stand being a unit. So for games like To The Strongest, it should play out on a kitchen table. 

The other big grab for me lately has strangely been dark ages gaming. I don't have any idea why, I just dont know. Way back when I flirted with Dark Ages stuff with SAGA and although the game was a lot of fun in demos, I found once we began playing with the more tightly written book and trying to do a slow grow league, I lost a lot of interest. The asgard rising patreon I mentioned a few weeks ago has been slowly growing in the background and for some inexplicable reason I have just been so drawn to the idea of it. The girlfriend and I were talking about watching Vikings and The Last Kingdom and this huge spat between TMP and TooFatLardies has reminded me that not only do I have a copy of Dux Brit taking up some shelf space, I also haven't played it yet. Drew and I decided that would be the move next, to play through that campaign. To that end, I've been looking through the book and will probably attempt to sneak the models from asgard in where I can.

This is just another one of those, "I am alive, and the hobby is neat" style of posts from me, for the time being. I still can't get it together enough for a real showcase, project log or tutorial lately as much as I'd like to. Appreciate people bearing with me and hope everyones staying safe during this mess. Thanks for reading.