February 17th - Boardgame Night

 Remember when I attended the fledgeling local boardgame group in Jan 2022? I had a blast, and planned on making it a regular thing. Then my wife got pregnant and fell really sick with it (partially my fault I admit), and I was in a situation where I was needed at home to watch the children, and felt bad getting a babysitter if I wanted to go out, while my wife was esentially bed-ridden. 

Well, she recovered, baby arrived, life got busy again, until I finally managed to go this month. Signs for March look good also. 

I arrived and sat with three first-timers. We played two and a half games. 

Game 1: Taverns of Tiefenthal

What a fun game! I loved the mechanic of rolling dice and then passing them along. I love the theme of an old-timey, tropey, fantasy tavern. I love the deck building element. I am not sure it grabbed me entirely, but I will definitely want to play this game again. I got my butt handed to me though. The components are lovely, the art is great. I genuinely really enjoyed it.

Here are my victory points. The best way to win seems to be to upgrade everything in the tavern, because you get a Noble for your deck, which is worth 10 victory points.

Game 2: Citadels

First time playing this with more than two people. It lasted a lot longer than I am used to, as there were five of us. I kept messing it up as the king. For me, there is something about fantasy sort of games that  I love. I also love card games, especially card games that involve deck building and creating some kind of empire, corporation or whatever with cards laid out in front of you. 

Game 2.5: Pandemic Iberia

We played 30 minutes of this and it went okay. I played normal Pandemic ages ago and I think we lost. I felt very lost in the game and didn't really enjoy it.

Here is to next month. I will read the rules of Revolution I think, then offer it to play.

Paizo Goblins - definitely NOT Kobolds.

 It turns out a Kobold is a skinny lizardy humanoid. I had it in my head, maybe thanks to these miniatures, that they are little comical mini-goblins. These miniatures are the official Paizo (Pathfinder RPG) goblins. I thought they were just random Reaper Bones miniatures. 

These guys have been sitting around for a while. My issue is, I am used to painting 6mm figures, where you need the following: skin, max 2 colours of clothes (one if it is body armour), 1 colour for belts if you feel like it, a weapon, maybe hair. With 28mm I find you need so many different things that I get painting paralysis. 

Take this guy for example: steel for weapons and some bits of armour, orange skin, bone for teeth and skull, wood, leather, tongue,  a couple for clothes. It is just so many colours, and in such small amounts that I can't be bothered half the time.

This one is my favourite. I love the expression, the covered eye. In weapons terms - the point is better than the edge. I like the poked out tongue. The only thing I haven't done is eyes.

I went for green skin for the archer. No real reason other than that I was sick of painting green skinned things - orcs and some goblins. 

Unsure about this guy. I felt like his head was a skull, but his fingers looked finger-like enough. Leather gauntlets...problem solved. Armour was this annoying bronze colour that didn't paint properly and ended up being sticky. I can still tell it is a bit off. I am tempted to go back to him and rust up his armour a little bit. The liklihood though, is that he will stay in my carry case for ages now, until I play a game of Song of Blades and Heroes. Or one day fulfil my dream of being in an RPG group.

Of the Internet and Disappearing Memories.

 Upon receiving a new laptop for work, I decided to sync my bookmarks. I mistakenly thought that the bookmarks on my old laptop were synced with my Google account. This was incorrect. It turned out that the last device on which I linked my bookmarks to my Google account was my gaming computer, which I hadn't used seriously in many years, and got rid of in 2017. I found lists of bookmarks that looked like they had last been updated in 2013 or something. I got really excited about this and was looking forward to a trip down memory lane of old WW2 wargaming pages, blogs and other interesting things. Unfortunately what I got was very different. 

I had a link to a database of Marvel Dice Masters. I used it for squad/deck building. It was a really great resource. Of course, I haven't really played this game since probably 2015, have never seen any of the other sets, the DC sets, DnD sets and sets from other IPs. I likely will never play any of them, other than my current collection. Much like my attitude, the link to that website was dead. 

Back in 2013 I spent a great summer playing Planetside 2. I researched how to maximise my own playing experience, and one of the suggestions was to join a platoon. I followed a page that was devoted to getting the most out of playing in a platoon, how to team up, how to best distribute classes. It was such a great resource.

Gone now.

Star Wars Pocketmodels. A classic game that I collected between 2007 and 2010 probably. It is really fun, it is Star Wars. It is constructible. It is fighting. 

There was a moderately active community that I watched slowly peter out until there were only a couple of people posting on the forum every now and then. Then the site shut down. Sad times. The links in my bookmarks are dead.

The Guild was a forum run probably by Piers Brand. It was the best resource for anything BattleGroup back in the day. At some point, though, it just shut down. Many of the posters there migrated to the Facebook page. Dead link.

Back in 2011 someone created a mod for Arma III, named it DayZ and let it loose. It was one of the best gaming experiences of my life. I dual-screened and had a map on the other screen, which helped me navigate around. "Anyone in Cherno?" Such memories. Spawning by the coast with literally nothing, trying to survive longer than 10 minutes. It was amazing. That map? Dead link. That game? Gone. They tried to create it as a stand-alone game and it was apparently disasterous. 

Back in the early 2000s I had given up wargaming and miniature painting. When the internet really came to life I stumbled across this website. It is by someone called Andy Watkins. He played in 15mm. He had some great terrain, figures and battle reports. Unfortunately he used a lot of Adobe Flash Player to run links to navigate the website. I happened to bookmark one Stalingrad battle so can see these photos. But I can't get to my favourite battle reports. I literally can't access them, even though they likely still exist online. Shame. 

There are a number of other blogs and sites that are no longer functioning. A Yahoo Group for the Crossfire WW2 rules - dead because Yahoo Groups died. A set of wargame rules called Point Blank, with a couple of battle reports - gone. That site is the site that showed me now necessary it is to attach figures to bases. I even contacted the author - Scott Clinton - over on Board Game Geek about if his rules ever got published. They didn't.

I wonder how many other websites are just gone. Along with the dreams and inspiration that they facilitated. How many periods of our lives were based around a thing that no longer exists anymore? 

There was a game a while ago called Star Wars Uprising. I got to travel around, shooting, levelling up. Then the game got shut down. Just like that. The same goes for the failed Command and Conquer reboot. It was meant to be free to play, there are a few games YouTube to watch, I even downloaded the game, but didn't get a chance to play it as I was living abroad and didn't have a good enough computer. When I returned home the game had been cancelled.

Just a whole world of "what-ifs?"

Five Parsecs From Home - A Trip Up North

In an attempt to avoid anymore local trouble, the crew travelled into the northlands in order to lay low. We will see, very soon, how this turned out for them.

 

2022 in Review

 Here we go then, my annual review.

I was not as active as I had originally planned this year, but there were extenuating circumstances so I am fine with it. When my wife fell ill in late January, I took full advantage of her not being around by getting a lot of hobby related stuff sorted. The novelty soon, however, wore off and I became more interested in binge watching all kinds of box-sets on Sky, the kind of box-sets that I know she wouldn't have been interested in. I rewatched Band of Brothers, The Pacific, The Wire. I watched Chernobyl for the first time, got lost in How I Met Your Mother (which hasn't aged well), Community, The Office, Parks and Recreation. 

Figure Painting

I have painted up a few Reaper Bones miniatures. I am pleased to have done a few of these. My children also had a go at painting them, The nun was started by my five-year-old. I was pleased to enjoy time with them painting. I also started using the foam-filled storage case to store the miniatures in.

Battlegroup WW2

I painted up a platoon of soviet infantry, some trucks, ATGs and tanks. They look really good, might even by my favourite army so far. They were a gift from my brother at Christmas. They were a pleasure to paint, but faired poorly on the table. I think I have only played two BG games this year. My brother came over from the USA and we didn't manage to get a game in, which was a disappointment. 

As mentioned in a previous post, I have put an order in, or am trying to put an order in for some BEF, early war Germans and early war Soviets. The intent is to be able to play in both Blitzkrieg, Barbarossa, and perhaps even a little bit of Kursk. My Tobruk and Pacific supplements will remain unused for a while. 

5 Parsecs from Home

I played a couple of games back in February but nothing since. I keep wanting to have another quest but then never actually doing anything about it. Disappointed.

Other

There are a bunch of other things going on. The game group I joined, went to in January, then never again this year. I will be back in Jan 2023 but then hopefully again every month from then. 

Book reading? I finished one, and started another from the Library. Galaxias. Halfway through.

2023

My wife will hopefully not be ill, as we won't be having any more children. Thus, I hope to get more done this year. I would like to play a game each month. Each week? I would like to paint at least once per week. However, setting these specific goals, I find it unhelpful. Work will get crazy, life will get in the way. My wife and I will find a TV show to watch together every evening for a while. 

I just want to do more, and be happy. 

Blitzkrieg and Barbarossa!

 I sit here now, with a whirling circle attempting to pay for an order of miniatures. This order will allow me to play some 1940 invasion of France, some operation Barbarossa, and I hope I can use the British infantry with some of my US Shermans and perhaps even 57mm guns in order to play late war Brits. I decided against buying any late war British tanks or cannon, as my order was already creeping too high in cost. 

Bring it on. 

Three orcs and a nun walk into a bar...

 I finished these Reaper Bones orcs last night, along with a gun-totin' nun and a weird knight.

I primed these a long time ago, in order to paint them with my children. They didn't get touched though. Thus over this last month I just went for it. I am mostly happy with them, although I think I should add eyes in red, and use a rustier colour to help highlight the metal. But as they stand, I can put them on the table. There is also an archer but his base isn't finished, so I left him out.

My 5-year-old painted the nun, or at least gave her her first coat of black. I finished her off. The knight is a problem. I painted his cape/cloak a long time ago. Then I stalled, not knowing what I actually wanted to do with him. He has skulls on him, and his shield looks almost like it could be made of wood, in fact, I painted the back of it brown ages ago. I wanted to use bright colours, inspired by the Witch Doctor on Diablo III. I looked on Pintrest for ideas and eventually decided to do actual skull colours, and just contrasting red and blue. I like it now. A bit gaudy though.

Adventurers from Reaper Bones

 This evening I finished off some figures. I am pleased with them. They are from my big box of Reaper Bones miniatures that I picked up in the 2012 and 2013 Kickstarters. I have barely even made a dent in them to be honest.

This is a figure that I let my five year old have a go at painting. He was largely green, and his base looked like the sky with clouds on it. In fact, I feel like you can still see some flecks of blue on the base. I painted over his greenishness with various khakis, leather colours and browns. I attempted point of light highlights on his arm, but don't think it really worked out.

I took inspiration from Diablo III for this monk. My first character on that game, well the first one I finished the game with was a kick-ass monk. I mean, this guy looks nothing like him, but I like to think they maybe know each other. The one thing I have forgotten to do is to highlight the blade with a blue. I wanted it to have a mystical air to it, like Sting from Lord of the Rings.

I am incredibly happy with my hireling. He has been getting splashes of paint added now and then for a while now, but a couple of nights ago I just went for it and filled in all of the gaps. I have, however forgotten to paint the flames in his lantern. 

While painting these, I also put flesh colour on a few other figures, and painted green flesh onto four large orcs. I intend to get those finished and play Song of Blades and Heroes again, although I can't find any of my terrain for it.

Back Water Landing Pads

 These two back-water landing areas are ready to go. They could perhaps use a little extra, but I am happy with them for now.

I have some peg spacecraft on the go, and have just spent a while sorting out my storage, which uncovered a few more stalled projects. I will get those on the table soon. I am feeling some mojo return.

Agridome Part 3

 I just need to drybrush the doorway but I like the idea of putting new things inside, and having it semi modular. The grass will stay. But trees, people, other things can come in and out.

Things have been really slow on the hobby front. A new child is a useful excuse. Busy at work is another. But to be honest I just can't be bothered. Every evening I get the children off to bed and end up just sitting in front of the TV watching stuff. I have watched some great TV though, but I find I am rewatching How I Met Your Mother, which hasn't aged well in my opinion, video essays on YouTube about films and TV, which while interesting isn't a great use of time. I just started watching TaskMaster, which is hilarious, but again, has been distracting me.

I aim to be a bit more proactive as it goes now. I think 28m fantasy miniature painting will be my go to as I didn't end up getting my huge shopping list of WW2 miniatures (hopefully for Christmas now). I just want to do more than I am doing, but finding the motivation to get it all out and sit for a bit painting, building or whatever is just hard right now.

Thanks for listening to my ramble.