Works in Progress (2) - End of the Season Labors

 I decided to extend that "clean of the workbench" project a bit to the start of the AHPC. Here's a couple of things I've painted since then.

Hydra Miniatures Atomic tank. There's more coming on this but here's most of the robots

I also managed to finally finish one of the two forces for BLKOUT

Art the clown is nearly done, hes actually farther along than in this photo, the base is started i just need to do some washes and paint the "concrete" hes sitting on.I will probably finish this during the challenge even if it's not going to count for points.

AHPC starts tomorrow and I've done 0 prep. I'm going to try and paint in no particular order; The Dungeon, Some adventurers, BloodBowl Season 3 starter, The Chaos Dwarf Box, a proxy force for Shadow War Armageddon, Some Napoleonic British, More Atomic Tank, Breachers for my Word Bearers. Wish me Luck

2026 Hobby Goals

I bit off way more than I could chew this year. Although I assumed I would have less time, the end of last year going into early '25 seemed very promising. I've been doing a ton of soul searching to try and pick some reasonable goals this year. So first last years goals repeated below the break

Cracking a Few Eggs - My Complex Relationship with TTRPGS

This is a very long, very rambly tale of how I feel about RPG's and some introspection on my relationship to them. I've hidden this one behind a jump break based solely on its length. 

Works in Progress (1) - October 2025

 In a manic late night paint session I had a thought. See, I have a tendency to start projects and not finish them. This is actually one of 3 of these types of post I've written tonight. (The others are scheduled out so as not to bog you all down.) I was thinking though, as one does as they dip their brush into their tea cup for the umpteenth time in the midnight hours. My desk is, and frankly always has been, a disaster. While coming to the sort of realization today that I don't game the way I used to, I was think I still enjoy collecting and painting. As a result, over the years I've gotten into these cheap plastic tubs to store work in progress "stuff." So besides the desk that looks like this

I've also got my "work in progress" shelf, that looks like this 

Each of those tubs, most of each of those drawers, and each of those cardboard boxes house some sort of "project I've started and not finished. Dating back frequently years at a time. 

At the risk of setting a 2026 goal, here in 2025 I have a bit of an idea. 

I want to take October (and most likely November) to try and just tidy up the workbench part of the desk itself. Whether that's remove, finish, or organize, I'd like to try and clean up the bench in one way or another. October (though there is very little of it left, 11 days at time of writing this) is nearly over but let's start somewhere. I would like to try and participate in the AHPC this year if there's room and I think this would be a nice way to get rolling into that. 

Then, Starting in December, I'm going to attempt to take one tub a month and do the same. Either Finish what's in it, box it up for long term storage, or get rid of it entirely.  I'll be using the Works in Progress project log to document it for fun.

As part of my, any progress is good progress mantra, here's some forward progress on Art, my second Cabinet Piece for the year.

 To be honest, he really just needs his eyes and base finished along with some selective washes to be good as done. This scale has a major benefit of being easier to paint in some regards. 

Some More Musings on Boardgames and My Yearly Hobby Goals

 This is a long, rambly introspective post about how the years been going. I've decided to leave the bulk of the post below the break so for those of you who aren't interesting in the boardgame/blog stuff can skip it easier.

Top 5 "New To Me" Boardgames of July 2025

Believe it or not, it's that time again. July saw 33 games played, bringing the yearly total up to 187. I played a few favorites, (Toy Battle 4 times in a row for example) Scout, Ark Nova, Ironwood. I also played a few unplayed titles. As you can tell I'm sure, the pendulum has been swinging back towards wargaming though to me, its all linked. So as usual, let's begin with;

Honourable Mentions

Black Sonata

Black Sonata is a solo deduction and hidden movement game. If you're a solo gamer that sentence either sold or stopped you from getting this one. Mechanically (though it took me one completely messed up game to figure out) the game is really sound and super interesting. It feels like a very real game. I did something very different with this one. I downloaded the free Print and Play version and spent weeks cutting, gluing, holepunching and sorting stuff. It was worth it for the experience and to ultimately say "I won't do that again"

Top 5 of July 2025 

5. Galileo Galilei

A dry euro from Capstone, designed by the same designer of SETI, sign me up. This is a game that I saw on several Origins haul posts. When it arrived at my FLGS I grabbed a copy and it hit the table pretty quick. There's not a ton to this game in terms of innovation but it is a solid Euro experience and it does what it does very well. The iconography was a lot to process at first but by the end I was quite impressed. A very solid game.

4. Farm Hand

The first of two Kickstarter games on this months list, Farm hand is a small box trick taker. In a ever evolving world of "Trick taker games with a list of twists to the formula," Farm Hand sure is a "trick taker with a list of twists to the formula." I happen to love these but YMMV. In short, this is a trick taker that has things like, increasing number of cards each round, if two players play the same number they're out for the hand, and bigging on number of wins. Its also a solid experience and one I'd break out at any chance. 

3. Rome In a Day

This is a classic I'm told. It uses a "I cut, you choose" mechanic which is pretty unique. It fits my usual theming, tile laying interests. There's not a ton to say about this one but I found it super enjoyable and different from most of what I've played lately. Each turn you take your tiles and split them. Each player then chooses to take either the large pile or the small pile from their neighbor. You keep what they don't take. It leads to a lot of interesting decisions in a very short time. 

2. Twinkle Twinkle

This is the latest kickstarter from Allplay to deliver. Twinkle, Twinkle is a tile laying tableau builder. Much like River Valley the game is simple but offers some fun "high score chasing" gameplay. Its quick to play and has rather nice clear tiles that allow for all sorts of placement. Theres a rather large expansion and my only real criticism of this one is that the core box is too small to fit the expansion content. 

1. Tango

Two player trick taker. Trick taking games typically need more players or have some sort of core change to the rules to allow for two. This is a purpose built two player trick taker. The main mechanic involves what is effectively a dummy team mate but it all just works so well. I really enjoyed this one and it fits in my "break it out and get in a quick game on a school night" box. It's rather simple but the game is real snappy and I enjoy trick takers. 

So there you have it. The games this month all fell on the simpler side but it was a nice batch to try out. The pendulum has been swinging hard back towards wargaming and painting lately so even though I've been keeping up on the board games my main interest is gravitating towards painting again. I've nearly got the dwarves totally done and am nearly ready to get in some games with them. I managed a horus heresy game as well as a barons war one. Lots of exciting stuff.

Top 5 "New to Me" Boardgames of March 2025

 This is probably going to be a reoccurring thing if that wasn't clear.

So March saw me fall just a bit shy of the pacing I've had for the year so far. I think were still fine for the total goals at year end because there should be more gaming this summer. I played 27 plays across 22 different games. Of those, 12 were new to me not counting new expansions for games I've already played. 

Honorable Mentions

An Age Contrived

 This was played at the monthly "lets play those kickstarters" game group I've been attending. Same place we played Last Light last time. I could best describe this one as "a euro game with ameritrash sensibilities." I have this game on my wishlist but to be honest I haven't decided if I will actually pull the trigger because I haven't decided if I actually liked it. I'll republish the texts I sent to a friend that sum up the experience pretty succinctly. 

"It would be like if I told you to make a cake and instead of giving you a recipe I just told you what every individual ingredient tasted like. So you taste the raw flour and rightfully spit it out and that's the moment I tell you well, that ones there for structure not flavor. So you smash together some version of a cake based on all the cake youve eaten in your life and its bad and only then do I tell you that you needed specific quantities of each ingredient"

A bit hyperbolic but it summed up our first game well.

World Wonders (Mundo expansion)

 

Last year we played our way through the legacy game, My City with some friends of ours. In short, My City is a tile layer with tetramino shapes and requires some spacial awareness. About one or two games in my wife as well as one of our friends were over it. 2 of us loved the experience until about the final 6 games of the campaign. We all thought by the end that the game overstayed its welcome and the consensus was "I'm over this genre" 

Depsite the wifes protests, I picked up the spacial awareness tile layer World Wonders and its Mundo expansion at Origins last year. I'm glad I did. There are some neat twists to the formula in the open shared market, the "buying out of the round" that comes with purchasing wonders and the actual spatial puzzle. Many of these games work by asking you to fill the grid out more or less completely but this one doesn't. I'm also obsessed with nice Chonky Wood parts. 

This is an honorable mention because we've played the base game a few times but just added the expansion in recently.

Apiary 

Apiary makes the list because I would play it again but it didn't leave a solid first impression. Unfortunately I blame that on the starting faction I drew at random which pointed me towards a specific resource that was difficult to get and shoehorned me into thinking I needed a specifc strategy to compete. This is the most points I've lost a game by with this group probably full-stop. I'd play it again buy I did take the expansion off my wishlist.

Top 5 of March

5 - Power Vacuum

 This was a kickstarter that just delivered. Billed as a trick taker mixed with social deduction. I don't think that's quite what delivered but the game is super unique. We only got one 3 player play in and I would be very excited to play this one again. There are some twists to the formula wrapped in a nice production that make it a good fit for the shelf. There is a much larger discussion on what hidden role and social deduction does for a game but in short, adding a mechanic that allows you to reveal your hidden role early makes for its own subset of mechanical interaction that is super interesting to me.

4 - Black Forest

 

I liked this. I mostly want to talk about the resource "clock."  This is a euro game about making glass. Every time you recieve a basic resource (the resources to the right of the top facing "clock hand") you slide the token representing that resource one space clockwise. You'll notice the number tracking quantity around the center of said clock. Whenever there is an empty space to the right of the clock hand (i.e. there are no tokens in the "0" space) the clock hand must be moved over. This has the effect of increasing the resources to the left of the clock hand while simultaneously depleting all the resources to the right. This happens automatically and is mandatory and will happen mid action. You either understand what I said and it sounds neat or you didnt and this game is probably not for you.

The meat of this is wrapped around a sort of worker placement type mechanic and involves you trading the resources back and forth to have the right resources to buy what you need at that moment. My only complaint so far is that those clocks are dual layer and curled right up. I was the most into the game in our group but I don't think anyone hated it.

3 - Hands in the Sea (2nd ed)

This is A Few Acres of Snow rethemed to the Punic wars. I adore Few Acres so this was a natural fit for me. I think the changes and additions of things like the naval combat and the event deck make it different enough that if you enjoy one there's room for both. I think Few Acres is slightly more polished and is arguably more accessible. 

2 - Joyride Turbo

I have a lot of car games for someone who spent a long long time self describing as "not a car guy." Briefly; Thunder Road, Formula D, Heat, Rallyman GT, Rallyman Dirt, Downforce. Of these, I've become obsessed with Heat for my racing fix. Rallyman is solid though more simulationy and less hollywood. Thunder Road captures the chaos well. 

Joyride is really fun. It brings enough to the table to make it worth keeping. It is ultimately a mario kart style game with the win condition being the race part. It isn't as easy to teach as thunder road but it isn't as hard as something like a wargame like Gaslands. I had been itching to get into gaslands again but this is much easier to table.  

1 - El Grande

Area Control. I love it. I like dudes on a map games. I like twists to genres. This has everything to make me feel like it is a "classic" game even from play one. The actual mechanics are easy enough to follow but the Castillo and accompanying rules add just enough rub to make the game stand out. It wasn't long enough to overstay its welcome but had more depth than a filler game. Just a super solid game all around. I was incredibly disappointed in Ethnos last month but this was a welcome surprise hit.

 

For housekeeping. Were close to a wargame post. I'm nearly done with the Halo Flashpoint starter. After that I've got some Flashpoint Wave 2 to paint and then I've got my eye on something historical for a little bit. I've been painting a bit here and there but need to do a day of just basing soon to actually finish this stuff off. 

 

 

End of January Check In

 Checking in for the end of January

Shame Golf - 

Nice and easy so far. Im up to positive 13 points. I purchased Spectre Mythic and painted Master Chief for Flashpoint

 

Hobby Goals -  

So far, not a ton of progress. I'm a hair over halfway on a cabinet piece, the McDevitt Chibi Doom Figure purchased at Wonderfest who knows how long ago. I was showing a friend Marvel United and debating whether or not im going to start painting my collection when I remembered I might have something that would scratch a similar itch. 3 somethings actually. I have Doom, Hulk and Black Panther from this series. Base coats and the base are mostly done, on to highlights and shading. The biggest roadblock on this is just that its awkward to handle. 

I have been doing good on the board game related challenges but more on that in a bit. 

We managed to play a game of Trench Crusade (I enjoy it quite a bit and am looking forward to more) and I have most of my starter list at least base coated with a few figures just waiting for basing. 

I've somewhat cemented a more scheduled plan for the year to get in some  more regular gaming so hopefully that will help.

On the non hobby side, I've already read 2 books and am halfway through a third. Perhaps 5 books was a low bar.

Alphabet Challenge - 

Alphabet Challenge is going fantastic. 

Avant Carde
Bloc by Bloc
Cat in a Box
Distilled
Earth
Fishing
G
Hoplomachus Victorum
In the Footsteps of Darwin
J
K
Lords of Vegas
Moving Wild
N
O
P
Q
River Valley Glass Works
S
Trailblazers
U
V
Whirling Witchcraft
X
Y
Z

 

Percent of unplayed games - 

I am ecstatic to announce that I have finally crossed the 40% Threshold and am sitting at 39.87 percent unplayed as of this post. This was from what I can tell mostly due to adding expansions in this month. We played 2 Marvel United expansions as well as expansions for Arcs, River Valley, Cubitos and Lords of Vegas.

Total Games Played - 

This is also going well. 29 Games so far for January with one or two more planned hopefully. At this rate it should be no problem at all to get in the 372 I am shooting for.

Cool Board Game Stats

 Happy new year all. 

As mentioned in the previous post I have a few hobby goals this year related more specifically to Board Gaming. I thought I'd take a second to talk about and break down some stats. 

First of all I put three challenges in my list for this year. I'd like to by year end play 372 games, Complete and alphabet challenge, complete a 10 x 10, and get the percent of my unplayed games down to 20 or less

Quantity challenge:

Last year I set out to play 365 games. The numbers were looking ok until my daughter was born and I discovered that I actually enjoy solo gaming quite a bit. One game in particular caught my attention and that was Legacy of Yu. This is a solo only campaign game from Garphill Games and is basically a resource management worker placement type game. I'm about halfway thru the campaign and am expecting to finish that out this year. Unfortunately I got super sick the week of new years eve and had to cancel not 1 but 3 different game days we had planned and as a result I fell just 7 short of 365 plays. Hence the 372 this year. With solo gaming I think this is definitely possible. 

Alphabet Challenge:

This one is pretty straightforward. Play 1 game starting with each letter of the alphabet. Were only 2 weeks into the new year and have already played A, D, F, H, L, M, R and W. I expect this one to be fairly easy as well and want to take advantage of it to play some games on my shelf of shame/opportunity. The more difficult letters are all already accounted for so this should be actually kind of easy. 

The 10 x 10:

This challenge is super interesting to me. The idea is you play 10 games 10 times each. Originally the wife had no interest in joining me on this crusade saying that "I cant imagine there's a game I'd want to play 10 times." Conversely though (and ill touch on this more in a second) I need to slow down on purchasing new games and enjoy the ones I have. A good friend of mine made the point that there's so many games he truly enjoys on his shelf that he doesn't have time for already so why cloud the collection with just "ok" stuff. I'm inclined to agree to a point although if you know me you know that the collecting itself is half the fun. This is a strange hobby and in participating in forums there is a real divide when you ask "how many games is too many"

I ended up picking games that fit a fair amount of the same criteria that would be easy to justify tabling. 

Furnace
Earth
Arcs
River Valley Glass Works
Everdell
Architects of the West Kingdom
Marvel United
Quacks of Quedlinburg
Tiny Towns
Crokinole

All of these games have expansion content I haven't played except crokinole. In the Everdell and Architects categories, we're including the spin off games Duo and Farshore and for architects in particular we're counting any of the three games in the Medieval trilogy as well as Tomesage itself. (More on that when it hits the table)

For Marvel united I'm also going to count DC United which should be delivering this year I hope. 

In spirit of all this I went back and forth before finally deciding to purchase a tracker off etsy. It was expensive, (70 dollars) but ultimately worth it. All the labels as well as the meeples are magnetized and its just a super cool premium product that makes this a little more fun. I discovered a lot about myself last year in that Data and tracking things is an amazing motivator for me to follow through on stuff. 

Finally Played Percentage:

Even prior to the collection purchased mentioned last post, my wife and I have been keeping a spreadsheet of our game collection to make sure we dont buy anything we already have. We use BGG but this was a quick way to sort by player count or double check if we were in a game store if we saw something and were unsure if the other owned it. I added a column for whether or not we had each played each game and last year we had weekend dates to each pick a "new to one of us game" and try it out. 

I spent a little while learning excel and discovered I could write a basic formula to determine what percent of our collection we had actually played and to be honest it isn't pretty. As of this post 40.48% of our games I've never played. 

Now some of this is easily explained. My wife came with a lot of party games which aren't my favorite and since the pandemic large groups still havent bounced back. She also has a fairly large collection of Game of Thrones and Harry Potter games so even though I've played Scrabble in my illustrious career, I've never specifically played Harry Potter Scrabble.

The other half of this coin is that I conceptually like expansions. A lot of the list is expansion content. Something like 100 of the games by rough count are expansions. So even though I've played a ton of Furnace, we havent actually had Interbellum hit the table. Lords of Vegas was a wonderful addition to the collection but I have yet to touch Americana. 

Finally a fair amount of the problem is we keep finding games that arent on the list in addition to me picking stuff up. There are 2 specific games still on my short to buy list (Wayfarers of the South Tigris and Ezra and Nemiah), 1 additional game will be an impulse buy if i see it  (kickstarter game that I'm unclear whether it will be retailed) and then I have my eye on just two KS coming (Black Orchestra and the South Tigris expansions and Moonsaga) but other than that after a great Boardlandia Sale I'm taking an extended break from buying more. I have a ton of Kickstarters delivering this year and frankly just too much stuff. 

I have been starting to trim the collection a bit though through facebook marketplace and will continue doing that throughout the year. 

 

Year End Wrap Up

 I'm sitting here writing the wrap up a month early here on Thanksgiving day. I don't want to say I've "thrown in the towel" but the reality is I don't see my self being able to make any big project posts between now and the end of the year. I'm sure you can tell from the last post that this won't be a big exciting update. I mentioned in the last post that things were changing. I spent the last year adjusting to a new role at work (which required a fair bit of travel that has now mercifully calmed down) and more recently we welcomed the birth of our first child. Since then things have begun to calm a bit but more recently than that I've been dealing with my moms basement flooding. The damage was thankfully not too terrible but it's required me to take significant stock of what I want to bother transferring out of her house and frankly a lot of things got binned and did not make the cut. 

This isn't meant to be any sort of pity party type of post but its all to put some vague perspective on things. 

I had some opportunity to work from home recently which allowed me to paint the Vespid half of the new kill team box but haven't begun the other components yet. Beyond that I began cleaning my workspace out in a significant way. 

We had a very interesting diversion recently as well. I spent a while waxing about why I've been gravitating harder towards board games and in the very beginning of September something wild happened. Paul calls me out of the blue asking if I need any games? An open ended rhetorical question of course. Long story short, a friend of a friend knows of someone who just inherited a massive collection of games. Ill skip the gory details but in brief we spent 700 dollars and, assuming I did the math right, acquired around 3500 worth of games. I paid somewhere around 8 dollars a game and got quite a few "grail" games. The guy loved his games and most of these had sleeves, expansions or promos included. Due to needing to catalog this stuff I've found myself weirdly fascinated by data lately. I'll leave that thread dangling with my most humbling stat. We've apparently never played approximately 40 percent of our collection. 

So is this the part where I lay out lofty goals for the year? It is. Of note, theres 3 board game related ones in here. I may also dabble with board game reviews but time will tell on that front. I will for sure be making some board game related posts however as I work my way through the unplayed games in the collection.

Paint 2 factions for Crisis Protocol and play at least 2 games

Paint 2 cabinet pieces

Paint 2 complete forces for Shatterpoint and play at least 2 games

Finish a second army for Full Spectrum Dominance and try the game

Play 3 games of Trench crusade with painted models

Create a 4 x 4 Modular trench board (if we like the game)

Play 365 board games

Complete a Board game 10 x 10

Get the list of unplayed games down to 20% or less

Finish 1k of Word Bearers

Try Horus Heresy

Play Lord of the Rings with a newly painted list

End the year with a sub 200 golf score

Try spectre, arsenal, breacher or another "modern" game

Finish the TF2 Project

Paint the Halo Flashpoint box

Paint my spinespur collection

Try Blkout with painted models

Play a fantasy skirmish game

Play Mad Maximilian. 

Finish the Hivestorm Box and play Kill Team

Play a Historical Game

Finish Reading 5 books

It's not all bad news however. While perusing my list of painted stuff this year I did notice I actually painted a fair amount of stuff. 

I painted a fair bit of Legions Imperialis stuff early in the year. I also managed to paint an entire spearhead for Age of Sigmar. I got rid of quite a pile of stuff but what killed me (as always) is the cult of the new. Even though I painted the Stormcast, I purchased the new starter and have yet to make any progress on it. Same goes for the flesheater courts as well as Hivestorm. One major number killer was the purchase of 2 boxes of wargames atlantic samurai. Theyre tiny and take up almost no room but man are there a lot of figures in there. 

I picked goals this year as I always do based on what I'm into now mixed with a touch of "whats going to catch my eye soon" which is hard because come Con season I usually get distracted. With a new child we won't be attending shows this year however which should cut down on that a fair amount. 

Happy New Year and here's to the year ahead.

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.

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. 

Adepticon 2023 Haul

 Hello.

2 posts in one day. Crazy right? This ones super quick and dirty. We went to Adepticon for Saturday and part of Sunday. I spent a fraction of what I thought I would this year. I had a couple key purchases in mind and was sort of surprised at just how much stuff was out of stock or vendors didn't bring. I was also surprised at how many vendors were there with booths but no, or very little, actual product. 

Heres the haul.

First of all, I set out with the specific intention of purchasing the Firefight Veermyn Starter box. No one had it. Mantic told me they sold out of everything veermyn except one vehicle on Thursday. These things happen but it was a touch disappointing to find that out.

I ended up ebaying one from the show but for obvious reasons its not in the photo. 

The surprise highlight was Demon Ship. This is a nice quick "microgame" from Malev Minis (thru Blacksite Studio) I've been following the progress of on instagram. I got a chance to demo the game with Malev himself and had him sign my demo copy. What I was not expecting was to be able to preorder the set from the booth. I was told it would ship in a couple weeks and I'm gonna cover the game in full when it gets here. It was a definite Highlight of the show for me though.

I picked up a couple packs of figs from them as well but didnt go to heavy as theres a second edition on preorder now and I wasn't sure what would translate and how.

I also picked up some eightbound and a couple chibi figures from Impact to put on my shelf. Five Leagues is a solo/coop fantasy game. My wife was interested in rangers of shadow deep this time last year but we've found the figure and terrain requirements a bit of a road block and I'm wondering if this might be an easier sell.

The angry chicken is a con exclusive mini and scenario for conquest. 

Finally with money still burning a hole in my pocket I picked up two sets of Mazon Labs for Deadzone. I was not expecting these to be single part casts (except one figure) and theyve already been cleaned, primed, and by the time this posts at least partially painted. 

I also got a sweet leatherface bust from Black Heart but don't have a good pic at the moment and I also picked up a Game Envy wet palette which was sold out but will ship soon I'm told.

We did try a few games and I will give super brief thoughts below

Demon Core - No relation to the above game. This is a "warcry like" skirmish game in development from Bestiarum Minis. It was great to meet the designer and we chatted at length about having a great excuse to finally print the figures. More on this in a month or two when the patreon or kickstarter is announced.

Creature Caster Judgement - A year ago I would've bought this in a heartbeat. Now a days I'm more aware of what will hit my table and I just can't imagine I'll ever play it. I enjoyed the demo but ultimately passed. If its at adepticon next year I may cave. I really wish this was out before Aristeia as I really only have room for one of these arena type games and this was a little more fun.

 Hobgoblin - This is a mass battle game from the creator of Gaslands. I got to meet the other author (whos name I don't remember, a fact I feel awful about) who is also the editor of Blaster Mag. The game was neat but frankly uninspiring. It seems to be a mass battle game with generic units where you can points buy keywords. I loved the system in Fantastic Battles but this isnt anything new. What was inspiring was the demo giver's army. 3d printing from One Page Rules, he had a nice sized beastman army. I will probably pick up the rules based on simplicity but we'll see what the kickstarter looks like.

All in all, I had a great time catching up with friends and looking at inspiring stuff. "visit a convention" was on my list for the year, though I'd still like to attend an event before years end where I play a game or two. 

Follow up posts coming soon.

Checking in on Hobby Goals

This will post while I'm at adepticon presumably screwing the whole list up and making all sorts of lofty mistakes.

 Though I didn't adhere to my original plan of "roughly two goals a month" I have been making steady progress on a few of these goals. Here is the updated list with some break downs

End the year with a sub 200 Golf Score

    The year of course is not yet over but as of this writing we're sitting pretty at 141. This was after receiving an all in pledge on yafsiga and selling off my Conquest Spires and AOS Slaanesh force.

Begin the Lord of the Rings Ringbearer Campaign

    I did paint a couple more figures for this and actually (using the mines of moria plastics) have enough to play the first scenario.

Play Spectre Ops

    Purchased a box of Wargames Atlantic Afghans and the digital conversion set from WAA

Print and Paint two sets of Team Fortress 2 Figures

    Printed one and a half sets and put paint on at least 4 of the figures.

Play To The Strongest with painted 10mm figures

Finally Try Age of Hannibal

    Both this and the goal above were waiting on bases to continue which have since arrived.

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

    I have assembled everything in spider foes and am about halfway through painting it all. 

Finally Try Moonstone

Finally Try Mad Maximilian

Play at least one game of Necromunda

     Managed to play a game with my wife in February

Try Necropolis28

Try Mordheim

    3d printed an entire warband of witch hunters and roped two friends into a test game in april.

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

 

Now heres the bad news. This list was the original list that I had hoped to acomplish this year. Unfortunately (as one is to do with such severe hobby ADD as I have) there are a few other tasks I really want to try to knock out this year

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

Try Battlefleet gothic and OPR equivalent

Play Deadzone

I know its awfully ambitious of me to add things to the original list when we're not even out of march, the list is barely cracked and some of these are completely unrelated or rather extravagant. I am who I am and I am want to give it a try.

Goal Completed - Try Moonstone

 So the wife and I had a chance to get some gaming in this past weekend and I had just put the finishing touches on the Moonstone Starter box I've been working on since lord knows when. I'm not generally one for an after action report but the game basically came down to the roll off for first activation of the final turn. It was a super close game with my wife playing the Goblins and me playing the humans. I went ahead and started prepping Boulder to add to my collection and something about the figure has grabbed me in a way figures haven't grabbed me in a while. Expect more photos of moonstone stuff down the road

Here are the contents of the two player starter box. I'll do a quick write up sometime soon about how i did the bases because they weren't a lot of effort and I'm very happy with them.  

As a starter set I think its a great buy, you get just enough to decide if you want to buy further and as a contained experience it was enjoyable. It has super unique mechanics and played quickly.

I managed to actually get a second game in as well and have some further quick thoughts on the rules. I think the game is really solid but I'm not sure where it sits on my shelf. I enjoyed it quite a bit and absolutely loved painting the models but with a lot of boutique games I feel like the sweet spot is "a group who plays where everyone has their own faction/collection" and with this game I simply can't imagine a group where a few people go in on it. Maybe it exists better as a convention style multiplayer game? I think the game is an underrated gem but I do sort of feel like I understand why I haven't spoke to anyone else playing it. Thankfully I love the figures enough that I'm happy with my small (and probably still growing) collection but I do wonder how often I'll end up playing it. 

I'd like to try a 3 player, a 4 player and maybe a campaign game before I decide if it will hit the table or go into the cabinet but I just adore the figures so much that I may just paint what I have. Either way this completes one of my self challenges and for that I'm happy. 

As a totally unrelated aside, I think my biggest road block to blogging has been pictures. I really want to get this thing rolling (case in point this was originally written on Jan 28.) but the room I paint in now is terrible for photos, and it always seems like such an ordeal to drag stuff upstairs just for photos. I've already easily done more hobby so far this year than last year in total but you'd never know it from lack of social media posting.

Team Fortress 2 Project (1) - Test Figure

 I've been long obsessed with the team based online shooter, Team Fortress 2. I've pumped  a little over 300 hours into the game according to steam which for me is a lot. I haven't played in a while now but this is a project I've had on the back of my mind for a while. 

Originally I was planning on writing a set of rules specifically to do skirmish gaming with the franchise but I have some different ideas to adapt a ruleset now. For now I just want to paint all 18 figures (and a couple accessories) and have a collection. If a game happens, cool, but I'm not sweating that. 

When I first got an idea to do this I found some files on Thingiverse and squirelled them away. Unfortunately as best laid plans go, this was going to throw up a bit of a roadblock. The files I found are super low res. Years ago, before I knew about printing and long before having a resin printer, I printed the scout in fdm and thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I had no clue the low res was part of the sculpt. I'm guessing these are ripped right from the game but I'm not sure. 

Heres a WIP photo with a bit of paint on it. I was gonna post a primed example but I forgot to get a photo and dove right into the painting.

 

I'm completely fine with a block paint and leaving it at that. First of all, these are just to have. There's no planned game or anything yet so I mostly just want "the complete set" with paint on it. Second of all, I think this style of no contrast painting works fine on these figures and the aesthetic of the game. I've got a few of the other classes already printed. I've been getting lucky with auto supports so far. I did have a couple pieces come off and break while removing supports but to be honest, theres no way stuff like the engineers lasso bit was going to last once the print was cured. More soon.

New Year, New Hobbies

 I feel like every year I start the year off with some sort of vague attempt to quantify the hobby or set goals or expectations and this year is no different.

I had a very interesting 2022. I got married, truly dived into a new career and generally I've changed a bit how I've felt about the hobby. I've waxed lyrical about how I feel about hobby content creation over the years on various platforms and I'll save that for a different post but for now I simply just want to lay out some plans for the year and attempt to make a bit better use of this platform going forward.

On New Years Eve, while watching The Banshees of Inisherin (absolutely wonderful by the way) I took a few minutes to write down a few "concrete goals" This year I just wanted to pick a bunch of stuff to get acomplished across the hobby as opposed to a static number of figures. A fair few of these are simply revolved around playing more games. Any time a goal says "play" I fully intend to have all of my figures involved in said game fully painted. Without further ado;

 

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

I intentionally picked mostly projects that were at least partially started in an attempt to finish some of these desk hogs while still allowing me some wiggle room to experiment with whatever new nonsense catches my eye. Ideally I want to finish the year out with a negative golf score but after looking over my numbers for last year (which come to grave with me) sub 200 is a real milestone. 

I've already made a great stride into one of these goals and am starting in on a second already so I feel surprisingly confident already. Theres approximately 22 line items here so to keep on pace i'd like to accomplish at least 2 of these a month.

Miniature Shame Golf - End of Summer Season

If you haven't read about this yet, check it out HERE

So lets check in. How did I do?

In short. Not great. I knew the results would be less than flattering but I thought I'd paint more in general. The total number is around what I thought it'd be but I did think I'd have more figures done to show for it. The constant reminder of a running total did however prevent me from buying more things than I normally would. As an off the top of my head example, I was really on the fence about grabbing the new kill team box and the penalties for buying something at launch were enough that I decided against it for now. 

Because of the rather loose nature of the rules, the challenge motivated me to finish a lot of stuff that was just sort of close to done but not finished because it was easy points. Right off the bat, the night before Stellacon, I finally got around finishing the bases on some old WW1 British as well as finishing a whole starter force of Germans, all for Blood and Valor (Review HERE)

Some day I'll come back and take better glamour shots of some of this stuff. I swear.

At Stellacon, I blew a whole bunch of stuff out, in the hopes of actually lowering the number some. Although that worked out nicely, I also walked away with 1k points of slaanesh and a Nights Watch army. Though I left that day with a negative score, it was the last time I'd have that. 

Twice this Summer I've found myself in Chicago at the excellent Games Plus store. Discovering an amazing game store like that will put a dent in your balance for sure. I walked out both times relatively light but definitely with an addition to my score.

The launch of Dominion was a huge dent because aside from being a huge box, I picked it up on release day and took the penalties there. So Far I've only finished these. I have plans to convert the Stormcast so those will have to wait until later. 

Some other addition to my pile of shame include some 3d printed terrain, a ton of stuff for conquest and the other half of my 3d printed 10mm ogre army. 

I did have one really excellent evening of painting where I finished a bunch of Lumineth stuff, a bunch of Crisis Protocol stuff and my first Moonstone figure.

There were a few other purchases here and there but unfortunately as of the end of this season, im sitting at 232 and coming in second to last place. I'm writing this a little early and there is a chance I'll get below the 200 mark but its unlikely. I have a few packages out standing (Lunar preorder, moonstone kickstarter) that will hurt when they arrive but I also don't know how much time I'll have to paint this month.

I'm definitely glad I participated but my goal for the fall season is absolutely to get bellow 100, and ideally below 0. Only time will tell