Seasons of Scenery 2026 Update 1

     It's now early August, here is what I have finished over July. I have been busy assembling more of my scratch build terrain in my garage, but they are still a ways off. 

    Here are the new additions, for the scratch built terrain. Since it was nice out I took out all of my pieces that were in the garage. 

Possibilities with the new terrain

Playing around with board layout

     Slowly, I am getting through more of my Heroquest terrain, I since painted and washed the rest of the open doors, but I will show them off once more stuff is painted. 

    Setting up my terrain on my two black storage containers and a piece of styrofoam, I realized something I am lacking, height. Though the structures are tall, once placed half a foot off the ground, it does add some creative depth to the terrain. I have several pieces of styrofoam horded strategically procured from work for risers and background set dressing. 

Next on the Hobby Desk

    I have started making risers, more buildings. I also have some vehicles, just debating about what colours to use on it. With my frequent trips to my local Value Village thrift store, I have several toys to convert into ork, buggies and trucks, not sure if they will make it onto the painting table with all the other stuff I am trying to fit in, but they do seem like they would be fun.

Monster May(hem) 2026

     Okay, I swear I have something for this challenge. May definitely slipped away on me, like how is it June tomorrow!? Snow was on the ground mid-May, our province has even forgotten winter yet.

      So, I did pick up Heroquest with 3 expansions, plus another I found at a EB games on sale. I have been too lazy to take pictures of all of it. The obvious starting point would be the the heroes, right? Wrong! 

FURNITURE!

Hero of legend?

      I know, I know, giant apes aren't much of a monster. This one, though, has above average intelligence. See? He made his beat stick with a sapphire, the second hardest rock to pummel your foes. What a monster! 

Next on the Hobby Desk

     I have been granted the ability to attend Dungeon Fest 2026 in Calgary this August. Initially, I thought it was mostly Mordheim, which I have been wanting to play, and MTG, which I have less interest in playing.  But now that the schedule was posted, there is a lot of indie games I wanted to try out. I dragged my feet a bit too much on tickets so I missed out on that part of the event. Instead, I'll be playing in Trench Crusade Satursay and Mordheim on Sunday! Time to read the rules and assemble my minis as I haven't played either!

Spring round up

   With spring thawing and freezing and thawing and freezing it's way on the prairies, my backyard is constantly underwater. This was shot after the first high of 20 Celcius (68 F for the reads that aren't from Canada), melting a good majority of the snow in my yard.

      The walkway, pillar and the base are all separate pieces. My plan is to make a couple different pillars for easy swapping to match what I need to connect other terrain pieces. I also staggered pieces of flat metal on the walkway for future covers to be magnetized to. 

      While preparing Heroquest miniatures, I had some poxwalkers that were sitting on my hobby desk. They were painted without anything on their base, so I have now corrected that.

That's it for now, I will be posting some finished Heroquest miniatures next. Stay tuned! Oh and Monster Mayhem will be starting soon! I need to think of something to paint for that!

Paint What You Got 2026 Finale

     Alright, so not the most productive challenge I have been a part of. Most nights when I usually do my painting I have been too tired to get off the couch. 

    But alas, this is the results of getting back to the hobby desk! Not a single Battletech amongst them for shame! And worse yet, I bought the new Heroquest from the used market (definitely 100 + miniatures), I think I lost the true meaning of this seasons Paint What You Got Challenge. Maybe I find it's meaning later in the year. 

Unmatched - Tyrannosaurus Rex

Unmatched - Dr. Sattler 

Unmatched - Ingen worker

Unmatched - Velociraptors

Would would win?

Fatal Four way!

    These were painted up with contract paints, in the mess that is my hobby desk, I seemed to have misplaced the T-rex's base. Time to try out a pomodoro technique, usually my answer to moving stuff off my desk is painting it which usually does get it cleaned off.... eventually.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    I wouldn't mind diving into the Heroquest miniatures, or continue with Unmatched (I have Tales of Amaze and Cobble & Fog, 10 minis in all) or the Dark Eldar. Hmmm choices, I also have some scratch build terrain ready for some quick painting, that might get done soon too.

Remembering the Dark Eldar

        Back in the early 2000s, my buddies, Pilon, Mike and I walked into our first Games Workshop store in Edmonton. We were all enamored by the idea of pushing around miniatures on the table. We had started playing Dungeons and Dragons around this time, and Warhammer 40k seemed to be the next level in the RPG hobby. We all picked out a faction, Mike went with Tyranids. They look like Zerg from Star Craft, which probably helped. Andrew picked up a 3rd Edition starter set with the rules, Dark Eldar and Space Marines. Being a teenager without much money to my name, I picked up some Dark Eldar Wyches to supplement the Kabalite Warriors in Andrew's starter set as well as the faction codex. 

        We didn't really play much, and my paint supplies were limited as my hometown didn't have a dedicated hobby store. Also Dark Eldar without a transport Raider is a suicide mission. Proxying didn't seem to enter my mind at this point. 

    Pushing around models on the table felt larger then anything in D&D. It was probably the stack of books and other household items on the table that really shaped the battlefield.

    I eventually turned to Chaos, mostly to rival Andrew's loyalists. But Dark Eldar were and still are one of my favourite factions in 40k. Specifically, the models that I started with. Here are a few I painted up to compliment the Archon, handful of Wyches and Icubi which I have already painted up. 

    Which led to digging out more warriors to paint up...

    I paused on this project as my brother was getting into Unmatched. So I started painting up those models, but hopefully will swing back around once I get them finished up.

2025 Wrap Up

    I have been a bit neglectful on the upkeep of this blog. Posting a demo game and terrain I painted in November only a couple of days ago? But I had to get it in for the end of the year wrap up to total up all the painting and purchasing I have been doing or others have been doing for me.

    Here are the items I acquired over November and December:

A Touch of Evil - Revised

     I have heard good things about this game, that it's like Horrified with more atmosphere and tension. We shall see, it plays 1-8 players so a solo play through will likely be in the mix soon.

    I had a moment of weakness when I went on Ebay to find two Dark Eldar Raiders in alright condition. After using some of my dark eldar for the OPR demo, a couple kalabite warriors and a jetbike have landed on my paint table. So seeing these two raiders for a steal make me want to continue shaping up my 3rd Edition Dark Eldar. This won't be a purist list as there will be newer models in the mix as well.

    Rachel gave me an Fantasy Miniature advent calendar to open throughout December. Quality ranges a lot in these miniatures. For the most part, they will work well.

Here are a few highlights of the bunch.

AI sculpt?

All the short minis look great

I don't think you belong here

    And now, my short painted miniatures section. 

     I can't recall where I got these lizardmen from but they will be used in Ghost of Archipelago. Demoing this or Mech Attack! in 2026 has definitely crossed my mind.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Well, I should get to work painting some of the items on my desk, maybe some of the board games I am hoping to get to the table? I don't have a solid plan at the moment.

One Page Rules Demo Day

       I ran a One Page Rules - Firefight demo at our community room, The Spot, at one of our malls. It is only available on Sundays and I given time off parents to spend the afternoon there. 

      I was able to run two demo games. One was with Jon who helps run The Spot. The other was with Matt, who ran a Blood Bowl league that I played in when I first returned to this fine hobby of ours. 

       A handful of people came to check out the tabletop games being played. I was able to give my 1 minute pitch about OPR and how easy it is to get into the hobby. I was hoping for more players as I had prepared to run a four player game. 

       I will try to get more demo events over the next year. My goal is to show off indie games (though, I don't think OPR is that indie anymore), and grow the community with terrain/ kit bashing opportunities. I think this might be an either/or situation as the terrain bashing didn't get any focus while I was demoing.

      Enjoy my one picture from the event. Note the Terminator on the walkway, which should have been more menacing then he was.

       I would tell the bystanders that the terrain was a printer, to which they assumed, 3D Printed. Please, you give me too much credit, I am not that fancy.

       Talking with my friend about the event, I realized I forgot to add pictures of some of the terrain I had finished. So here it is, my disassembled printer terrain.

My favourite side

Garbage hill

Next on the hobby desk

      I have small projects on the desk, most are 80% completed to get stuff flowing off quicker.