Pelgwis Ambletrek

    The Ambletrek family name is a bit of an oddity for gnome culture, known for their wanderlust. Seeking adventure and living a nomadic life instead of becoming recluses in a community of relatives. Pelgwis, or Pel as some of his close friends call him, devoted his late teenage years to The Valor of the Serpent's Path. Members of the guild journey to far off lands to root out corruption and injustice.  During his travels, the small statute of the halfling was receptive of ridicule, followed immediately by gut busting laugher. A gnome? That if going to take on a group of bandits single handedly, how absurd! It was only after the pint sized paladin whooped all sorts of wicked butt, that the mockery would stop. Pelgwis needed a new image, something that would make him the visage of justice. Though he didn't follow in normal gnomish tendencies, Pel had talent in the workshop. Tinkering with machines when he had time to spare in the next city he visited. After months of tweaking and testing, his fine mastery of gadgetry was now ready to be revealed. 

Pelgwis Ambletrek

Ready to defend the weak

    A fearsome lizard, one tyrant of all lizards, would show the vile cretons of the realm to think twice about their actions.

    This is my first entry in the Character of the Month Challenge that the_goodground has issued for anyone to join. The challenge is to paint one miniature a month that would fit into a D&D 5th edition party, any race and class combination. Use the hashtag #paintanadventuringparty on Instagram. This is a great idea! I have an addiction to Wizkids/ Reaper Bones miniatures what better way to get them painted for the table. This model was part of the resent Reaper Bones kickstarter that I received last year, it will be nice to choose a new model, one that I am inspired to paint in that moment. 

    I browsed my collection and what I don't have, or at least very little of, are miniatures of any of the shorter races. Before any gnome, halfling or dwarf lovers out there get upset and start typing out nasty comments on my blog, I figured I would have a round about way of adding more races, okay, so it's a bit of a cop out.

    

    This challenge doesn't specify alignment, would be fun to have 6 models as a "hero party" and 6 models as a "villain party". Doubt that I'll work a narrative around all of the characters actually being in a party together, but could live in the same world. 

   

Next on the Hobby Desk

    The Corpsewrack Mausoleum is getting to be very close to done, hopefully I will be able to show it off soon. Another challenge I heard about is Fembruary, which is focusing on strong female characters. This challenge was specific to painting, which might be a good time to paint up my Don't Look Back - Final Girls Expansion. 

Looking into 2022

    Now, 2022, after a year of maternity leave for Rachel, she will go back to work. This will begin my paternity leave for 6 months. This will be a good time to go out for family vacations for the summer. Rachel is already planning a trip to Prince Albert National Park to pick up some seeds that she wants to plant in our backyard. That won't be the only park we visit this summer. Grasslands National Park, Candle Lake, Narrow Hills Provincal park, Sask landing and Great blue Heron were on Rachel's short list of places she wanted to experience as well as old favourites, Riding Mountain, Echo, and Douglas.  I know Rosalind will be ready to explore nature by then!

    Rachel also mentioned making a point of playing 2 board games a month, a mix of revisiting old board games and learning rules (or relearning in some cases) for new games. We made up a list of games to play

Rachel's New picks

Mice and Mystics - haven't gotten passed the second chapter, I usually teach the first chapter as it gives a good feel to the game.

Root Underworld Expansion - haven't played the Corvid Conspiracy factions

Everdell - played less then a handful of times.

Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig - this was a last year? Christmas gift, got out maybe 2 times

Rachel's Old picks

Lords of Waterdeep

 Dinosaur Island (aka Rachel's OHS nightmare of a park)

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle - Finished main game once, haven't played The Monster Box of Monsters Expansion

Pandemic - have been playing that for a year and a half, am I right? 

Takenoko

Scythe (hope to play the expansions with more players, one which is a legacy game)

Castles of Mad King Ludwig

Machi Koro

    All of Rachel's picks I am game for, she picked out these from memory, this list will get longer as we actually look through our collection together. 

    As for me, I have a few games for solo play, because, let's face it, at some point I might not have people in my house this year. On a less somber note, is that most of these games I could show off to others after fumbling with the rules on my own. Also I am adding skirmish games, if you don't like it, make your own list.

Jon's New List

Reign in Hell - Models agnostic skirmish game, one of the reasons I picked up the Dreamblade models last year. 

Super Mission Force - Repainting and purchasing old heroclix for this, I have 12 repaints done. I wouldn't say anything solid for a team, so that will be one of my goals.

Shadows of Brimstone - With the core set mostly done, I hope to get this on the table soon! I even picked up a Doctor/ Nurse hero to entice Rachel a bit more to play.

Mage Knight - I hear it's a good solo game with some crunch, doubt I will try playing it with others.

Rising Sun

Robinson Crusoe - great solo game, even has a fan made expansion that has you trying to capture King Kong!

Don't Look Back! - Cooperative slasher flick, might be awhile before this gets on the table... painted anyways.

7 Wonders Cities - never played the expansion yet

Formula D - Played beginner, would like to try an advanced game, with 10 players!?

Five Leagues from the Borderlands - solo grimdark fantasy solo game with a focus on narrative play.

PrimEVO - prehistoric tribal survival game, has solo play too. Might not get to all the indie skirmish games, but would be nice to try each out.

Jon's Old List

Lord of the Ring's LCG - Rachel bought this like 5 or 6 years ago, and I found another copy used to make the game 4 players. I want to try getting a full group for this game, I enjoyed playing it before.

Memoir 44 - Light wargame that isn't too hard to teach.

Star Wars Imperial Assault/ Descent - Another two games that could be solo or with other players.

    I am sure I could convince Rachel to play some of the skirmish games on my list She also wants to do more regular paint nights and get me to assemble to metal Onna Bugeisha or Female martial arts practitioners from Test of Honor. 

    As for goals, I have some loose goals that I would like to see happen.

One Character a Month - Over at Dead Dick's Tavern, the Angry Piper runs a challenge for himself, and anyone who wants to join in on the fun, to paint up one character a month using different classes from Dungeons and Dragons. What a great opportunity to clear out some of my Reaper Bones models from the pile of creativity. I haven't decided if I will also create backstories (or character sheets) for these miniatures or if I will stick to just fantasy models. We shall see how invested I get with the models.

RPG try outs - Last year I picked up the Alien RPG starter set, which gives you all you need to play a cinematic version of Alien. After all, if you aren't a higher up in one of the main factions, you are expendable. Rachel also had some interest in playing the Root RPG, we got the quick start rules at an RPG day, but haven't dug into them. Another RPG I would be interested in running is Slasher Flick, a 80s campy horror film that puts you in the shoes of the teenages (usually each player plays two) that are making all the wrong cliché decisions. Go ahead and tease the killer, go skinny dipping with that hunky boy, it's your funeral!

Painting Goals - A bunch of the skirmish games listed on my New list aren't painted, so if I want to show them off on the blog, I better get my brush onto plastic! Finishing off Shadows of Brimstone core set, is definitely an easy win, only 3 models left! Painting up all the expansions, roughly 21 models, might be a more reasonable goal, especial when we start playing and enjoying that game. 

Don't Look Back is a bit more involved, 10 heroes, 1 killer, and 3 MDF terrain pieces plus scatter terrain. I guess only 4 heroes and a killer are required, who wants a plain looking board though?

Terrain/ Board creation - I have talked about custom rules for Space Hulk a few times, adding in Dark Eldar or Orks would be fun and making a 3D board for 40mm Terminators. Heck, add in other Tyranid bugs, even go as far as using genestealer cults for xenos that have taken over dead crew. Exciting stuff! I will also need to make a playing area for DLB and Super Mission Force, a generic grass field one or urban streets. 

That's all my goals for now! 2022 is a moving target, if I get through half my goals I would be pretty pleased. 

Next on the Hobby Desk!

My brothers and I played some Mice and Mystics, I will have a few things finished on the paint desk to show off.

Regifting 2021

     Some of the painting that I finished over the last quarter of the year fell by the way side. So I present to you my rewrap up of 2021, painting edition. 

    First off, honourable mentions. The Goliath big baddie was almost done, which would have finished off the enemies in the core set (still two more heroes to paint).  The gender swap drifter is from a character expansion pack, a more respectable character then the "Saloon Girl" that is in the base set. I do enjoy that Flying Frog Productions has made the effort to create alternate genders for all their heroes. Even if you don't want to buy them all, they still have character sheets of them that can be printed off. 

    Did anyone ask for more Heroclix repaints? Well too bad, that's what I got. Mostly X-men, with a random gorilla minion thrown in, which will go good with the Gorilla Grodd I just picked up, along with several more mono pose monkeys.

    Next we have the Shadows of Brimstone monsters, I had some heroes pictures from the front, but I must have deleted them from the phone due to poor lighting. Ooops! Oh well, there will be a group shot of them all soon.

Just your regular spiders

with sharp teeth!

Stranglers

Night Terrors

Time for some dynamite!

    Looking at my painted vs purchased is not very good this year. I have painted 105 figures, against the 476 I had bought! Yikes! Definitely going to cut back on those old model lots that I find. 

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Alright, 2021, is official over on this blog, let's welcome 2022!

Wrap up of 2021

     Where does the time go? Already another year in the bank, cashed by our elected officials at the expense of our frontline workers. I feel for all workers that needed support for someone to be on their side, instead of heaping on more of a burden onto our flimsy healthcare system. Blah! ANYWAYS!

    This year was a lot of changes for Rachel and I, one of the individuals that I supported at work passed away, Rachel's mom was diagnosed with cancer, we had a baby (9 months and counting), and moved into a house that we bought with money and signatures. Yes, what a year it was! Hopefully we don't need to do anymore of that in 2022!

    So what did I accomplish hobby wise? Well, I did finish off a lot of the Slaanesh in my "less crazy plan of 2021", the only thing that didn't get finished off were the 3 Fiends. I did paint up the Lord of Pain in the Shadows and Pain box. Maybe this Slaanuary I will continue start on the Hellstriders or Daemonettes that came in that box? Not going to lie, those new models in the Christmas battleforce are tempting.

    PrimEVO models were also on the desk, painting up game for the tribes to hunt. Space Wolves Kill Team was created with the 2018 rules, might work in the new rules, but I doubt I will pick them up. Picking up Shadows of Brimstone later in the year, I have almost finished the Core Set, just haven't posted the results (was hoping to completely finish it, but house moving makes it hard to hobby). Oh and then there was the Heroclix, that I rebased for Super Mission Force.  

    As for terrain, I didn't get as much as I would have liked to get done, only finishing off a 3D printed house and some scatter terrain for Rangers of Shadowdeep. 

    I did a bit of rule reading, but it was about new systems. Like Song of Blades and Heroes, Advanced Heroquest? I know, probably not going to commit on that one, but sometimes I do look at the simple models and want to buy or print some of the original ones. Why? Not sure, I have only played the game once, and long after it came out. Super Mission Force, and Homebrew rules for Space Hulk. Look, I said read stuff, I went for quantity instead of quality. For Space Hulk, I would like to make 3D junk made terrain, boards that would actually fit a standard 40mm Terminator. With less ability to play in person these days, I am gravitating towards solo play games and low cost rule sets, not that I really have had any time to play these days.

    This seems like a lot of buying all at once. I mean don't get me wrong it was, this was exchanged in the summer and I traded for my space marine half of the dark imperium. Wasn't really into the Primaris Space Marines, instead, I found my original love, Dark Eldar circa early 2000s. The army that got me into the hobby.

    

    So they aren't all old models, but the vast majority are. Break down as follows.

• 10 x Kabalite Warriors
• 26 x 2nd edition Kabalite Warriors
• 2 x Incubi
• 5 x Metal Incubi
• 7 x plastic Wyches
• 1 x Metal Archon
• 1 x Raider
• 4 x Jetbikes

    The Raider and Jetbikes will most likely form some sort of patrol detachment, the bikes are newer and I have a set of three to add to them. Might be a fun project for later. Some of the aged models I will be reposing for Space Hulk, fingers crossed I can make it work in that rule set.

    Oh, I did buy a PDF copy and physical copy of Reign in Hell. A collaboration project between Uncle Atom and Vince Venturella that was released earlier this year. Which got me to buy....

     Just a couple of miniatures from ebay for converting, a lot of the design of these characters are dark (looking at you scarecrow the hanging baby) and would make for good demons with a fresh coat of paint. Call of Cthulhu comes to mind for the bug like creatures. But what about the house? Or the Lion Rampant? Can't say at the moment. I removed the duplicates for better up close pictures. 

      I ordered these back in October, must get better at upkeep on the blog. I know one of my new years goals. 

    The last of the minis I bought was setup back in November when we were moving houses, so I asked to postpone dropping them off till we were actually settled in the house. And that, is.... more Heroclix!

The whole gang!

    

    Someone locally was selling off a giant collection and had most of what I wanted. When I had some down time in the fall I would look through HCrealms to find the sculpts I enjoyed. I would also focus on getting teams and themes together. Super Mission Force has rules for Paragon heroes, the equivalent of Superman, counting as 2 and a 1/2 Standard heroes, might work for the Sentinels, making it a bit unbalanced with 2 of them being 5 standard heroes. In that case, why not use 5 standard heroes. SMF recommends 4 standard heroes as it's balanced teams for both sides. Alternatively, they could be constructs, to run them as standard heroes. I digress, should break down hero building in another post. 

Original X-men

X-men Animated Series

Oops all Thors!

DC Heroclix

    There that's basically all for this year, and like every year, I am never on time for my wrap up, waiting till a week into the year to start a post about it. Oh well, some year, I will post before the year is done.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Logically, I will be doing a look forward to 2022. Slaanuary will definitely be one of the first projects I will be doing. Rachel and I have been forming a list of games we would like to play old and new, as well as getting them out onto the table twice a month, instead of the normal zero. Check what games we will be trying out for the new year on the next post!    

A Project that Clix

     While on my parental leave I had sometime thinking about the Heroclix, of all things, that I have and what their fate should be. My first thought - besides actually PLAYING heroclix, was to re-base select models to use in Heroscape, something that might one day be of interest to Rosalind? Or anyone else just starting to learn their first tabletop wargame. A quick google search took me to a large database of fan made Heroscape cards for playing super heroes in the game.

     This project I was pretty excited about while away from all my miniatures. Pondering up which villains and super hero squad I would like to paint up for the game. The Sinister Six against Spider-man that has called in the X-men for backup? A rampaging Red Hulk needs to be contained before he destroys have of Manhattan? Could try out just about anything.

    After a bit of jumping in and out of rabbit holes, I stumbled upon Angry Piper's blog. He has a bunch of battle reports, repaints of heroclix, forgotten heroes challenges - sculpting miniatures for lesser know characters in comics. Between Angry Piper and  Carrion Crows Buffet they also use a bunch of good looking Pulp Figures, probably will pick some up eventually. After reading a couple scenarios, it prompted me to pick up Super Mission Force 2nd which he uses for the battle reports. This systems seems like a lot of fun and had lots of creative options for fleshing out any super person you could think of, whether that be an existing trademarked character owned by The Mouse, or fan made. 

    The other side effect of looking through my heroclix, is that I have started borrowing comics from the library, Green Lantern and X-men mostly. For the most part, Yellow (use fear to control) and Green (harness willpower) Lanterns are arch enemies as they are basically polar opposites, but there was a great arc which Guy Gardener, your typical 50's beat cop who plays by his own rules, fights the biggest Yellow Lantern Arkillo without power rings, toppling the top dog to make the others in the corps to fall in line. Majority of what I repainted was heroclix, hope to branch out more... just need to prioritize my collection.

Top: Artocitus - leader of the Red Lanterns, Red Hulk, Arkillo - Second in command of the Yellow Lanterns, Kilowag - Instructor for new Green Lantern recruits 

Bottom: Saint Walker and Guy Gardener - One of four earth lanterns

    Later Green Lantern comics introduced the spectrum of colours each lantern using a specific emotion to create their constructs. Red - Rage, Orange - Greed, Green - Will, Blue - Hope, Yellow - Fear, Purple - Love, and Black - Death, which isn't an emotion but is metal AF!

Some of the other clix I was thinking about rebasing/painting. Still figuring out base sizes for models. With so many clix losing their base, their dials will make great damage dials. I should be busy throughout the winter now. Definitely don't need to BUY anything else.

    Throughout Covid the Regina Central library has been offering free 3D printing, I printed off some smaller things a few months ago. While in Fort Saskatchewan, I might've went a bit overboard with my submissions.... and well, they started charging for the service when they were finished. Shows me not to abuse the system! On the plus side, I got some really good dungeon crawling tiles and graves for some spooky ghosts that might hit the desk in October!

Caverns for In-Person D&D someday...

Close up for detail

    Some more detailed items turn into garbage with the filament printer that the library uses. This sarcophagus turned out well, the corpse has seen better days though! Expect to see these tombs on the Sorrowmourn Choir, Spooktober is coming!

    Previously, I had printed out some more traditional dungeon tiles with which I painted in grays. I wanted these caverns to glow a bit magically, hoping to add some vegetation to the walls, and some mushrooms, probably made with green stuff. 

Shadespire LOS blocking terrain featuring a friendly Gallanghann

    The rest is kind of a hodgepodge of what I have painted up, Orson Krennic had been mostly painted and in pieces on my desk for sometime now, his segmented body laughing at my lack of faith in the Dark Side no longer! The dwarves have been finished for a bit and the Blackstone Fortress Heroes I was hoping to finish off the Cultists with them but they still need more work. 

Krennic with his bodyguard dwarves.

    I was a bit lazy and didn't feel like getting out the BSF tiles for a photo shoot, so Gotfret and Servitor X-101 are hanging out on a Heroclix mat.

    The last thing to mention is a project that I hope to finish for October - which would be Shadows of Brimstone! This dungeon crawler is set in the wild west, where dark stone has been discovered in the near by mines outside of Brimstone. It has been found that these stones have a magic to them. Sadly, this power comes with a price, an explosion rips open a rift between worlds. Now unspeakable demons are flooding out of the mines, it's up to the heroes to close the portals to other worlds. Why not loot some of the precious stones at the same time as well?

Six Tentacles finished.

   We also played Root in our garage at the start of the month, why our garage? Because it seems that our cute furry cats are deadly to my eldest brother, Shawn. 

Here you have the typical "still on speaking terms" picture before the game.

    This was a learning game for both Shawn and Nathan. Shawn played the Marquise de cat and Nathan, the Eyrie dynasty. According to the game, they are the least complex. I would disagree in some way, as the other two factions aren't that hard to handle. 

    

    Eyrie have decrees which dictate what you must do on your turn, otherwise your leader disgraced and you lose victory points. Clearings are broken up into different animals, fox, rabbit, mouse or bird (wild card). One card must be added to the decree each turn, or more if you are insane. Bird cards do help, but they also cost you victory points for each used in the decree. As more turns go on, you have more and more potential that you can't build in a fox clearing as you might have already done that three turns in a row and there aren't any to claim or you can't battle in a certain clearing as the enemies were picked off by that blasted Vagabond's crossbow! Eyrie is simple to understand, but you definitely need to plan your next turn. We did help Nathan out as it was his first game, but this is a tough game to do a tutorial game as one faction can really take off if you aren't watching - like every time Rachel is playing the Woodland Alliance. First games you shouldn't be watching the points anyways right? It's about picking off those industrial cats with a well placed crossbow bolt from the Vagabond.

Next on the Hobby Desk!

    I am getting close to finishing my painting of the core models in Shadows of Brimstone, contrast paints help speed up the process, but it doesn't help when I find more models at Dragon's Den to buy!? Oh well, will most likely get in a solo play soon.

    

Paths to Glory 3rd Edition Campaign

    With 3rd edition coming out, my friend Michael, wanted to run a paths to glory campaign. Something gentle for us to get used to the new rules - also keeping it open for new players in the area to jump in and learn. 

    We would start in August at a 600pt Vanguard list increasing monthly, September Warband 1k, and by October have a 1500pt Brigade. For August I played one game, a beginner game with Xander. I built my list around cavalry, Bladebringers, Seekers and Daemonettes (for the batteline tax). The Bladebringer  Herald on Exalted Chariot, was 60 points too expensive, so I went with the Bladebringer Herald on Seeker Chariot. Just squeezing into the list at a hefty 190 points! 

    Sslithian Luxsion could feel a ripple in the atmosphere atop of her exalted chariot. There was something stirring in the Realm of Ulgu, their search for their Lord of Excess was communicating to his loyal servants. "Our search is nearing an end." Daraetha Heartslake, the Heartseeker, affirmed to the leader of the Pining Thrust. Sslithian smiled, "Don't be so eager to reach the zenith of our journey so quickly. Ghur is such a wretched place, full of creatures that are blemish on life, murdering and eating, no grace or finesse." Looking over the vegetation littered clearing, kruleboyz camped out gorging their selves on weak prey, no thought or reasoning to their slaughter, she felt the yearning call of her master. His need for overindulgence, massacres, debauchery, idolizers and Sslithian would give all that her master desired, and it wouldn't be a quick death for these fowl foes.

Battlepack

Xander rolled off to see which mission we would be playing, I don't recall the name, and don't have the core rules (only the smaller version - which doesn't include battlepacks or the path to glory rules) But the objective was for the attacking player to get half their force to their opponent's deployment zone. After rolling of for roles, I won and chose to be the attacker. 

Forces

Pining Thrust - Slaanesh

Sslithian Luxsion - Bladebringer Herald on Exalted Chariot (190 pts)

Daraetha Heartslake - Seekers x 10 (300 pts)

Terashon Mhal'Pr'athis - Daemoettes (110 pts)

Total - 600 pts

Da Pale Boys - Kruleboyz

Killaboss on Great Gnashtoof  (200 pts)

Gutrippaz (180 pts)

Hobgrots Slittaz (95 pts)

Man-skewer Boltboyz (120 pts)

Total - 595 pts

    On the initiative, Slaanesh won, also choosing to go first, like the greedy daemons they are. Seekers and Daemonettes advanced up the flanks, they they both could run and still charge later in the turn.

First round setup

Seekers quickly close in on their prey.

    

    Seekers move at 14" and they get to roll 2D6 instead of D6 for their run, making it super easy for them to sprint right across the board in the first turn and charge! Unlike all my other units, the Chariot could instead retreat and charge on the same turn. I moved it up, because caution is for chumps, and my daemonettes, bless their good intentions, tried to tie up the Gutrippaz. 

Chariot hiding till next turn.

    My Seekers and my Daemonettes had charged into battle on the same turn, choosing to attack first with the Seekers, meant that the Daemonettes fought after the Gutrippaz. These cruel orks tore them to shreds with their 6's to hit cause mortal wounds. Xander had rolled 9!? 6s on his first swing. Yeouch! The remaining single Daemonette didn't roll a 1 on her mortal test to blink back more daemons into existence. I forget if she survived for a turn or not, as Depravity Points are based on how many models less a unit has, in this case 9 points! 

    The Seekers did some damage, suffering a couple loses, by the bottom of turn 1, I had around 20 DP. At the end of next turn's movement, my hero could summon one unit to the battlefield. To put this into perspective, a Keeper of Secrets was worth 12 Depravity Points. Lucky for Xander, I am poor and don't own a Keeper, so instead a unit of 5 Seekers were spawned.

Turn 1 Orks

       Gutrippaz charged into combat with the Chariot, lucky for her, there was WAY less 6s being tossed around. Striking hard at the orks, but they were tough at two wounds a piece. Sslithian slaughter close to half before running away, summoning Seekers the next turn.

    As always when I have the choice of winning a game or asking myself What Would Slaanesh Do? I retreated from one battle only to CHARGE right back into the remaining Boltboyz and Hobgrots on the opposite flank hoping to fight with the big bad Killaboss too!

I believe the wounds were counting up, otherwise this would have been more silly.

    Sslithian's chariot bounded over the uneven terrain, tearing up dirt and foliage as it crossed to meet the Killaboss. The Gnashtoof growled as the Seekers neared, gnashing at one of the front mounts. Sslithian cracked her whip across the Killaboss' chest. Furious, the savage ork ignited his jagged boss-stikka, flames licking the air around it. His wide swing toppled riders from the Chariot, sending it off a deep ravine. Shaken, the crew gathers up the Seekers, and the mistress to fight another day. Sslithian felt she was off her game, maybe she was more excited then she let on to see Slaanesh back in the mortal realms again.

    With only one unit reaching the opponent's deployment zone - they need to be 9" away from enemies and stay for one turn if I recall. We didn't count summoned units as part of half of my army, but either way I would have needed 2 units to stay alive for a turn in Xander's side.

    Clearly, that did not happen. But it was fun playing the hedonites, glass cannons for sure.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    I haven't had another chance to play in the Path to Glory campaign, Rachel had a minor surgery at the beginning of August. Which meant no bending or like picking up a 15lb baby, pretty hard when you breastfeed a baby several times a day. Rachel is doing much better now. I have a bunch of painting to show off, and also a bunch of purchases from over the summer.

How I spent my summer parental leave

         In Saskatchewan there is a new(ish) parental leave system in place for fathers to take 5 weeks of parental leave. This doesn't affect the mother's maternity allowance, and it can be split up or taken in once giant chunk. Naturally, with two brothers being teachers, I was always jealous of their 2 months vacation. Now I get to have a month off in July!

    For the last four years, my parents have been renting cabins at different parks for a few days every summer. Went to Waskesiu this year, each household got their own cabin, just in case the Covid restrictions suddenly became much more strict. Everyone in the family was fully vaccinated by the beginning July, most two weeks post as well.

    Prince Albert National Park, has the boreal forest surrounding you on your drive into the park. Larch trees and pine trees stand as sentinels for eager explorers in deep reverence for these ancient growths. 

    My family fell in love with Waskesiu in 2018 the first time most of us experienced it's majesty - despite the lousy rainy weather which lasted almost the whole first week of July. Rachel and I traveled back in 2020 in the fall to witness the rich tapestry of fall colours on the larch trees, we even met a new fox "friend" 

Foxy friend just wanting food

View in the fall on Height of Land lookout tower

Boundary Bog Trail

    This year was much better, only raining a couple of times. We didn't go on as many hiking trails, but there was some swimming in their crystal clear lakes and hammock time. Much to Rachel's mild displeasure, Bauche's are pretty laid back, so much so that we would just agree with any and all activities. ("We can do that or that, whichever you want to do.") I think this is mostly due to how little we actually saw each other throughout the pandemic, so hanging out and talking felt like catching up for a year of isolation. Rachel might disagree, saying we are always non-committal.

    So far, every trip to Waskesiu has an Elk walking through our cabins. I mean they were here first, he was probably checking out his old mating grounds. 

    I took basically zero photos while out on trails or at the beach, so enjoy photos from the shutterbugs in my family.

My sister in-law entertaining Rosalind in the hammock

Checking out the beach with mom

View from parent's cabin, definitely didn't look like THAT cabin

Candid papa photo, this was after Rosalind's walk with Uncle Shawn, so she was getting a bit hungry.

Staple Height of Land Outlook Tower photo

    Originally, the plan was to visit Rachel's family, after our Waskesiu trip, all over British Columbia and Alberta, showing off Rosalind - now 4 months old as of writing. Where does the time go!? 

    While in Waskesiu, Rachel's mother had a major surgery so we went to Fort Saskatchewan to help out the following weeks. Doctor's orders was no bending or lifting and you know lots of rest.

    During out stay in Alberta, we visited a few places, I found a gaming store right in the Fort. It was carrying Everdell, which Rachel as been wanting since the beginning of the pandemic. Alberta's Covid restrictions were lifted at the beginning of July, so the store had events without masks. In fact, I was the only person in the hobby stores with a mask on. 

    Juggling baby schedule and adult schedule, we made it into Edmonton for one day - if you go to Edmonton and DON'T do a Ikea trip, did you really go? Yes, but we didn't want to find out and they had air conditioning for a baby Tula walk instead of in the blazing sun. 

    Industrial Park Games was the one hobby store I wanted to check out, it was well reviewed and lined up with our southern route through the city we were planning to use. With so many options, I wanted to be as quick with the hobby browsing as possible, one and done. My wallet would thank me. 

    The new Age of Sigmar tiered starter sets were supposed to be out, after much debate, I would only sample the new models and get the Warrior set. With the Warrior set, you get the sweet Killaboss and the Knight-Arcanum. Vindictors don't have too much Sigmar iconography on them, making them perfect to be come kitbashed Myrmidesh Painbringers or Chaos Chosen? Could even use the kit's spears and weapons on the lamer posed Liberators I have collecting dust.

    While I was in IPG, Rachel did some quick googling to find, The Clumsy Dragon Tabletop Guild. It was right on the way to Ikea, it would be fine to deviate a little.

    Still in the heart of the industrial area, this store had a small retail area up front and a large warehouse in the back for a subscription gaming club area. For a monthly fee, gamers have access to terrain, tables, painting supplies, and 3D printed models which could be bought after painting them. Really great place, focusing on building community in the Edmonton area. I really liked the setup and had a good chat with the owner, highly recommend checking it out if you live in the city.

    This was the haul that I picked up, the Age of Sigmar Warrior box was from Dragon's Den in Saskatoon. All the other places had Dominion, but their starters weren't shipped out in time. The Sentinels of Order hasn't been in stock anywhere I have looked, glad to finally pick it up. And hey, might as well get a Death Guard codex in Alberta for lower sales taxes. Was hoping to play a casual tournament in Estevan, which is why I grabbed the codex, but we had some health concerns to look after when we got home. The Tournament also was focused on being beginner friendly, but asked people to bring 2000pts? That seems like a big ask for people just learning the hobby. Epic Encounters has some pretty sweet looking Snakefolk.

    

    Resident Evil 2 expansion was 50% off at IPG, it adds two survivors - Hunk, an Umbrella agent attempting to flee a zombie infested Raccoon City with a stolen sample of the T-virus and Tofu - a parody character of Hunk, who is a giant walking piece of Tofu that only had a knife to fight off the horde.

    The drive to Alberta was quite hot in mid-July, by the end of the month it was cooler. We didn't have air conditioning, so we left early so that I could start the journey home as the girls slept in the back. 

Rosalind was pumped to cross the border into her birth province

    We still had 6 hours of driving to go, but did Rosalind care? She slept great for such long drive, only needing to 2 stops to tank up. It was nice to see family and friends in another province, but we definitely missed our cats and I'll miss my summer off, back to work now. 

Next on the Hobby Desk

One of my friends, Michael, has organized a Paths to Glory campaign that started once I got back home. It will be running for 3 months, increasing in points each month. First game was the day after we got back, small game to try out 3rd edition, only 600pts. Should be posting it soon.