New Years Resolutions!

     So, I did go a bit overboard with miniatures at the end of 2024. I would say that I won't do that again, knowing myself, I have a hard time saying no to a bargain! My pile of opportunity has a lot of miniatures that I have been/ still are excited to paint, it's a matter of reminding myself of what I could currently paint without spending a dime!

    Looking at my 2024 resolutions there are some that started off well then interest waned. Here is a summary of 2024 goals:

1) Paint what I got! Started off well. Around June I saw a really good Haradrim lot on Ebay, which was the first major purchase. 

2) Schedule gaming nights: With Rachel and I working shift work this can be tricky. I have gotten board games semi regularly woth my brothers and I have also joined a monthly Descent campaign that is ending soon. The plan is to transition to Gloomhaven, which I haven't played despite it's glowing reviews. Seemed daunting to me. Matt, who is running it, suggested to buy a new copy or start from where his family stopped playing. The gaming group wasn't too particular about starting fresh, so we will be in the middle of a campaign when we start.

3) Learn Easy convention games: The local FLGS Comic readers hosts Prairie Game Expo quarterly throughout the year. I had planned to run something for it but it somehow always scheduled on a day I or my family were busy. Finally, in October I would have been able to go, they lost their convention location. Guessly, I'll need to find a small group to convert into wargamers on my own. I also didn't read/ play much of the smaller games. 

4) Solo wargames: I did test out Song of Blades and Heroes, One page Rules firefight and Blackstone Fortress. Had about three games of BsF but didn't get fair in any of them.

    Now, what's next for 2025? I think my goals are similar, but I want to focus a bit more on focusing my painting to things that I'll immediately play with.

     I did paint up all of my Zombicide Black Plague, it was nice to be able to play it with all the miniatures painted up. There are a couple of board games that I'd like to see completely painted up, Rising Sun, Unmatched and Resident Evil 2 come to mind. 

Let's get to the Hobby goals!

1) Paint what you Got!!! Like I said, my pile of opportunity has lots of exciting projects ready to be started, so let's get them finished! And if I am not excited about a particular game, mini, terrain, then maybe it's time to sell or trade them off. Rachel mentioned that she would like to play Unmatched. I currently have Adventures, and Jurassic Park (Raptors Vs. Ingen & Dr. Saddler Vs. T-Rex) and just acquired Cobble & Fog as I heard it was out of print. 

2) Schedule Gaming nights: Rachel suggested to bring back the two game nights a month from 2022. I should make a point of rereading rules and setting up nights in advance to make sure we keep to a schedule. Plans on the calendar are set in stone. 

    Gloomhaven/ Descent nights are still be scheduled every month if possible. As well as, my friend, James, wants to get a Stargrave campaign going, so I'll need to fit that in too. Plus my eldest brother, Shawn, is getting into Battletech. With book keeping and complex rules, Shawn was thinking of learning the game in smaller 2 mech per person narrative style games. I haven't played in over 8 years, I will need a refresher too.

    If I can find a local group, I would also be interested in running some one off RPGs, but that's lower on the list of items.

3) Learn Easy Convention games: I would enjoy going to local conventions to show off Song of Blade and heroes, Space Weirdos, One Page Rules Firefight etc. With Prairie Game Expo in limbo, this will probably be on me to start up. Maybe I could rent out a room in the library monthly? In Regina, I feel that a lot of wargamers stick to non-indie wargames. I would love to run an Inq28 event, a movement in the community that focuses on rules light, narrative heavy gaming set in the gritty dark corners of the 40k universe. I just need to start a narrative.....

4) Dungeon 23 Community Event: Dungeon 23 started in 2023, but has continued throughout the years since. Simply create one room in a dungeon every day throughout the year. By the end of the year, you'll have a mega dungeon on paper with summaries of each room. For mine, I will be switching to 40k instead of fantasy with a focus on different setting elements each day. A hive city, Space hulk, planet, and major characters that inhabit each.

5) Solo Games: I'd like to start doing a more narrative focused for the solo wargames I play. I also want to do more board games solo. Mage Knight, Shadows of Brimstone, Conan (which has a solo variant) and Firefly all would be interesting for me to play through.

So there we have it. Goals are set, ready to tackle 2025!

The other horde....

    Alright, I have been dreading posting this for awhile now,. This hasn't been just this month, I believe I picked most of it up in October. I would say that I fell off the hobby wagon, but it was more accurate to say that I had guided the wagon down a shear cliff, hitting every rock on the way down. There might not even be enough pieces of a wagon to get back onto, only piles of plastic.

    One of my friends, James, has been getting out of Warhammer. He bought into Kill Team 2021 and is done with updating every few years. He wanted to give me a really good deal on several kill teams as well as terrain from the sets he has bought. I am now a proud owner of these kill teams:

• Ork Commandos (12)
• Extraction Squad (11)
• 2 x Death Korps Krieg (22)
• 1 x Gallowdark terrain set (10)

    Part of the deal was also trading my Darkoath Savagers, so I did relinquish some of my sweaty angry barbarians.... for even more sweaty angry barbarians!

    Conan, from Monolith Games, is a scenario based cooperative board game set in the brutal world of Robert E. Howards imagining. One player takes on the role of the Overlord and up to four others playing as Conan and his merry bunch!

    Over at Lead Balloony, he has painted up all the miniatures with a really nice paint job, despite the poor quality of plastic. The kickstarter version has more poses for the general rabble, this set only has one and some weapon swaps.  

60 Minions

A mix of Heroes, Minions and beasts, 46 in all

    On market place, someone was selling the intro set to the first edition of Age of Sigmar for a good price. 

4 Liberators, 2 Retributors

  

 3 Blood Warriors & 5 Bloodreavers

    

    Could use these in Warcry as allies/ adversaries in a solo/ co-op game. The Arkanaut Company could be used in Warcry, but these are my only sky dwarves. More likely they will be used for kitbashing chaos dwarves and the pistols used for mordheim.

10 Arkanaut Company

    I picked up yet another lot of Heroclix, I took the first picture then realized I had much more separated out. There is even MORE then this but I have deemed those as "kitbash fodder" and won't be adding them to my miniature total. Yes, I would be making new miniatures out of kitbashed ones and thus be counted against my total of purchased miniatures but I am sure there will be some that are only partially used. I am adding too many to my purchased pile okay!? 

All the hero..clix

Aww crap there is more!

Henchmen

    These next ones seemed odd to me, Frankenstein as like a pirate? a flaming monkey man? a human tornado? (don't think that's his actual name)

Choice heroclix

    Early heroclix sculpts are just plain silly. Doomsday is almost the size of Blade, a regular human vampire. Blade himself is also very chunky which probably a limitation of heroclix when they were first being produced. Dr. Octopus just looks he was a nerd they pulled out of science class, I guess that's not entirely untrue. 

Early Heroclix sculpts are fun

    And last but not least...I picked up some wargs and goblins as well as Ghost of Archipelago. The Mordor force is an idea I had to add in additional players into games of LotR. A raiding party of goblins and wargs could wander into a battle between Rohirrim and Haradrim. 

    As for Ghost of Archipeligo, well, pirates plundering forbidden islands has a vast potential for terrain, and monsters. I did pick up a megablok skeleton pirate ship, from value village that might host an undead crew in the future. 

Painted: 139  Troops, 8 Mounted, 8 Monsters/ Vehicles, 12 Small Terrain, 2 Large Terrain

Purchased: 559 Troops, 35 Mounted, 1 Monster/ Vehicle

Traded: 20 Troops

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Okay, so no more purchasing till next year! Got it! I swear I am actually working on stuff. It's a bit all over the place and I need to reel it in a bit and just focus on one thing. 

Zombicide - The Horde

 If you procrastinate long enough, you can just post all the finished painted zombies at once. I blame this on being a completionist. Only 15 zombies! I can get a picture of all 63 zombies, that would look way cooler on the blog!

Here it is, all 64 zombies (and one necromancer) ready for a feast!

I was right, it does look cool! I went with the heroclix approach to painting. Major areas have paint but don't look too close at the details. These shambling undead won't be on the table long enough to enjoy the spotlight anyways.

The only miniatures left is the heroes to paint, I have 3 painted already. Three more for the base set, and the base set will truly be completed. Another 4 for the Wolfsburg expansion, completing it as well!

Painted: 139  Troops, 8 Mounted, 8 Monsters/ Vehicles, 12 Small Terrain, 2 Large Terrain

Purchased: 195 Troops, 22 Mounted, 1 Monster/ Vehicle

This total isn't quite accurate as I have made purchases since...... but I'll get to that!

Next on the Hobby Desk!

Other projects have crept onto the table... like a Mordheim lizardmen kitbash? If anyone saw that coming you are probably psychic and should get some lottery tickets.

 I have some old metal lizardmen that were added to a trade awhile back. Didn't have any plans for them so Mordheim is giving these minis a new lease on life. 

Slaves to Darkness - Choas Knight & Chaos Murauder Horsemen

         I have been playing in a Warcry narrative campaign with some other locals. I have only had 3 games since September when it started. This is mostly due to having to start after 9pm, after my daughter is sleeping. My warband doesn't have much of a story as I haven't had the will power to write something up. I was thinking it would be a scouting party made up of mostly cavalry with the members all worshiping their own gods, united to seek out artifacts of power. This is basically as far as I have gotten.

    I initially started the Scorned Anguish as a chaos murauder only warband. A chieftain as the leader, three horsemen and seven chaos murauder. The idea was to grow the warband from weak roots, acquiring supplies as they grew in power. 

    The first couple game I got knocked around hard as expected with a horde of low tier minions. I recruited a chaos knight after the first game. He hits much harder then a murauder, that's for sure.

Magnetized weapon arm for fun posing and transport

Probably could have glued the legs to the horse then magnetized the torso. I might do that instead in the future. With the knight painted, I focused on the horsemen that already had a few colours on them.

The three horsemen of the apocalypse... Tzeentch be damned!

    Yes, Tzeentch is missing, I enjoyed painting brighter colours for, probably could go a bit more experimental with Slaanesh horsemen, maybe have a body swap for a female or non binary rider. 

    These were just for Warcry. If I wanted to bring in say, a seeker of slaanesh, I would need to roll on the aftermath table for an ally or heroes. Might not be a thing that I see happen as the last 3v3 battle will be happening next Friday and I don't think I'll be able to get another game in till then.

Painted: 86 Troops, 8 Mounted, 8 Monsters/ Vehicles, 12 Small Terrain, 2 Large Terrain

Purchased: 195 Troops, 22 Mounted, 1 Monster/ Vehicle

Next on the Hobby Desk!

Zombies! I should get these zombicide minis off the table! They are just a horde of bodies, I need to just get a quick paint job on them to start playing. I have 8 done as well as 2 heroes and the necromancer. I focused on what as necessary to play the game.

Sending our love down the well

    Prairie Game Expo starts on October 5th, I am hoping to go set up Don't Look Back for some demos during the day. (It's too spooky to play at night!) With the trees finished, I went to work on my Annis Hag that I picked up from Sentry Box this summer.

    Killers have three qualities, MO, visage and trait. MO is how the Killer moves and is set up on the board. Visage is how the players react to the killer and traits are special rules, usually for how they attack. Mutilated is one of the visage which fits the Annis Hag perfectly. There also is ethereal, so I'll have to take a look for any spirits I could use. 

    

    Killers can be randomly rolled up or there are several pre-made in the rule book. In the new Core Rules, you can create your own Killer as well as let a player control the Killer. I haven't looked into the new rules much, maybe I will create a narrative setting with it's own killer! That is one of the reasons I picked up the new rules. 

    For the most part, I have all the terrain I need to play, but there is one plot (scenarios are called plots) that has the players preform a ritual at a well to summon an evil spirit killer. They, of course, instantly regret pissing off ancient evils and need to gather items to banish the ghost. Well, now I have a well. 

More like a pool for the Annis Hag

Killer Party!

Max beside the well

Max summoning the Old Ones.

    I'll probably paint up some more killers and some fences and bushes to add more variety to the board. As well as pick up a game mat to make sure everything stays flat.

Painted: 86 Troops, 4 Mounted, 8 Monsters/ Vehicles, 12 Small Terrain, 2 Large Terrain

Purchased: 195 Troops, 22 Mounted, 1 Monster/ Vehicle

Next on the Hobby Desk!

    I was a bit out of sorts when I finished off these projects, I wasn't exactly sure where to go next. I settled on painting up some of my Warcry Slaves to Darkness warband as some of the new additions are just primed. This was before forming a solid plan for DLB.

Arcane Cataclysm, Grave guard, Merry and Pippin! Oh my!

     Before the long weekend, Rachel and I scheduled a trip to Saskatoon to visit one one Rachel's nursing friends. Nancy has two kids, both of which we haven't seen yet! So we all went to the zoo together. It would have been smart to actually take some pictures of the zoo, but you know, toddlers and exotic animals makes me forget. 

    Fun fact, the Saskatoon zoo has zebras which were seized from some farmer. Looks like he only got a fine of $2,800? Yet the province payed $120,000 to take care of them properly? Like how do you smuggle zebras into the middle of the prairies and why!? Sure, he could have painted some horses. Miniature ones.

    We also had a stop at Dragon's Den, well, two stops, as I couldn't make up my mind if I wanted to pick up more miniatures. And the answer is always yes, just don't go looking at all the miniatures I still need to paint.

    Dragon's Den had their 3rd Edition Age of Sigmar sets marked down 40%, basically I get one half of the box for free. This box has Vanari Dawnriders and Tzaangors Enlightened on Disc, which I might trade/ sell as I am mostly interested in the foot troops. I was informed that the Tome of Champions 2020 had co-op/ solo rules, so the Tzeentch could be painted up as adversaries. 

    I played WarCry on saturday night with James, he is in a narrative campaign that I have been playing in. He was hoping to play Kill Team, I mention, like everytime that Kill Team is talked about, that he should check out Acolyte. What's Acolyte? Why it's a campaign setting which you are an acolyte with 3 followers, to start with, doing all the dirty work for an Inquisitor. It is heavily inspired by Rangers of Shadowdeep. Also solo and co-op, for those wanting to learn the rules to Kill Team without the pressure. Anyways, I traded some Sisters of Battle for the Hand of the Archon. 

    I also found a local selling some grave guard and Merry and Pippin in armour for a good price. There! Now I should be set for several more winters worth of painting. Oh, I am also changing the point system to just a model count, that way I am just painting and not pushing myself to paint specific items.

Painted: 86 Troops, 4 Mounted, 7 Monsters/ Vehicles, 11 Small Terrain, 2 Large Terrain

Purchased:195 Troops, 22 Mounted, 1 Monster/ Vehicle

Next on the Hobby Desk!

    As I mentioned before, I think I will be preparing for October, making a bit more terrain for Don't Look Back and painting up some killers. 

Can't see the axe murderer through the trees

 

    Started out with pizza wedge shapes, then moved to more circular bases, which I prefer more. These foam boards might need some hard MDF glued to their back so they don't curl so much, as extra glue doesn't seem to help. Planning to purchase a 3' X 3' game mat soon, these might turn into play mats for my daughter if I can't figure out a solution.

Focus on the cute toddler, not my super warped boards

    Last year, I flocked a large amount of cheap Christmas tree from Micheal's, which like most terrain projects, got shelved immediately after I finished half of it. I find that I am super pumped by the project while creating terrain, but the mess and clean up makes it tough for me to get started. It's much easier to paint miniatures at a desk.

    That said, Season of Scenery has now ended and I find myself wanting to continue working on terrain. Spooky season is coming up soon and I want to start playing the second edition of Don't Look Back. I already have Coyote Manor and a camp site painted, would be nice to have some fences and one of the plots ( the scenarios in DLB) has a well as it's main focus. With these trees, as they would primarily be used for DLB, I was thinking of making their bases a bit more spooky, with body parts or skeletal remains. For now they are just normal forest trees.

Painted: -20 (10 small terrain)

Purchased: -43

Total: -23

Next on the Hobby Desk!

    Wow that total looks great! I am almost in striking distance of being positive for my painting. Oh wait no, I might have picked something big up....