Game Plan 2023 - Q4

How is this year almost over!? 

I didn't have much of a PLAN for Q3 to look back at... with summer and renovations raging ahead, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be doing all that much hobby stuff... and I didn't... Here's what I did get up to over the last three months... 

Q3 - GAMES

In Q3 I played... 

• Wingspan x3
• 1754: Conquest – The French and Indian War x1
• Azul x1
• Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game x1
• Carcassonne x1
• Charioteer x1
• Compounded x1
• Cyclades x1
• Splendor x1
• Terraforming Mars x1
• Wingspan: Oceania Expansion x1

Yeah... 13 games... wow... 

For the year, so far, I've played... 

• One-hour Wargames x20
• Codenames x11
• Wingspan x8
• Wingspan Asia x7
• Splendor x6
• Clank! In! Space!: A Deck-Building Adventure x4
• Agricola x3
• Century: Golem Edition x3
• Azul x2
• Codenames: Pictures x2
• Terraforming Mars x2
• Tinderblox x2
• 1754: Conquest – The French and Indian War x1
• Beyond the Sun x1
• Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game x1
• Boss Monster 2: The Next Level x1
• Carcassonne x1
• Castles of Mad King Ludwig x1
• Charioteer x1
• Compounded x1
• Cryptid x1
• Cyclades x1
• Hellboy: The Roleplaying Game x1
• Imhotep x1
• Kingdom Builder x1
• Lords of Waterdeep x1
• Shakespeare x1
• Terraforming Mars: Prelude x1
• Tyrants of the Underdark x1
• Vinci x1
• Xenos Rampant x1

87 for the year, so far... not terrible... 

Q3 - Miniatures

I painted a total of eight 28mm miniatures this quarter, and purchased 26 more...

Aye-yi-yi... 

Q3 - Painted

• 3x Ninja All-Stars
• 2x Rat Ogors
• 2x Chibi Dwarves
• 1x Yagyu Jubei

Q3 total: 7

Q3 Acquisitions

• 6x Cyberpunk RED - Generation Red
• 3x Kromlech Space Dwarf Snipers
• 1x Darksword Miniatures Turtle Warrior
• 2x Ninja All-Stars
• 14x Clan Tanchyo (Ninja All-Stars) 

Q3 Acuisitions Total: 26

Q4 - THE PLAN

The renovations are... well... the end is... in sight, I guess... Drywalling was happening this past week. By the end of next week, painting could be happening... then the suspended ceilings...? Then some flooring...? (though some of the flooring will be waiting on cabinets to arrive...) Cabinets... finish plumbing... and then moving everything around and finding places for everything... Honestly, I'm not sure ALL of that will be done until the end of the year - when we might have time to devote to sorting and moving and such. 

If the renovation weren't enough... Amanda has just gone completely overboard with commitments this fall... I mean, as if the renovation weren't enough on top of a fairly demanding fulltime job... she's also committed to teaching EIGHT weekly yoga classes - each class being an hour long (PLUS the time to PREPARE each class...). AND she's spent the last month preparing and practicing a piece for the Saskatoon International Burlesque Festival - which was just this past weekend... AND plans to choreograph a completely NEW piece to preform at the Rosebud's Burlesque Club's Peek-a-Boo Halloween show at the end of THIS month... Does that all sound InSaNe?! But wait, there's MORE.... in addition to all this, she's also doing an online yoga teacher training thing that is every other weekend (two hours on Friday evening and then about seven or eight hours on the Saturday and again on the Sunday... AND there's homework and practice sessions she has to do BETWEEN those weekend instruction session!?).

Keiran isn't much better. They're back to doing three dance classes each week at a studio they danced at in the past and is ramping up for the school fall musical - which they will preform in December and Keiran will be VERY involved in... in addition to acting and singing and dancing, they are also doing a lot of the technical back stage - sets, props, and costumes (last year they sewed MOST of the costumes themselves!?). In addition to, y'know, SCHOOL....

That being said... I am SOMEWHAT hopeful that the hobby slump might... well... might not be OVER... but... I have some hope that a bit more hobby stuff will happen in the final quarter of the year... and at least by the Holidaze we might be getting back to playing games on the semi-regular... 

WHAT, exactly, will I (we?) be doing..? I couldn't say, exactly... If I had to guess... 

Q4 - GAMES

Looking at what i've gotten up to this year, so far (above), I'm obviously NOT completing any sort of 10x10 challenges this year... ah, well... 

Probably best to not even consider a Quarterly 5x5... 

Roleplaying

My online gaming pals did make Blade Runner characters a few weeks ago, and we're planning to play next weekend. I hope I can keep that game going for a bit - even if it's only every few weeks or so - at least to play through the adventure in the starter kit. After that..? maybe we'll continue with another adventure... or maybe we'll have a go at the new version of Twilight: 2000 or back to Wrath and Glory...?

I'd also like to run some in-person games... but that will depend on when the Game Room is available. Which will probably not be before November... maybe not even before December, or the Holidaze... In person I'd be keen to run the same things - Blade Runner, Twilight: 2000, and Wrath & Glory

I do still hope Finnegan will find some time at some point to run that My Little Pony Role-playing game for us... 

Board Games

Again, this will probably depend on when the Game Room is operational again... I'm hoping it will all be good by the holidaze and we can get some last minute gaming in before the end of the year!!!

Miniature Gaming!? 

Again... the Game Room....

I'd be keen to run some sort of skirmish games... maybe a short campaign... or maybe just try out the solo version of Stargrave (or Five Parsecs from Home)?!

Some of my miniature hobby time might be planning bigger things for the new year - like another online campaign or an in-person weekend campaign of some sort...? 

Q4 - Miniature Painting

With the end of the basement renovations and the Big Shuffle.. I should once again have a proper painting station and hobby space, to really get going on painting again. That might be in the new year. I'd like to keep plugging away at these Ninja All-Stars... and maybe a few Sci-fi things for Kill Team or Stargrave or Five Parsecs from Home- or any minis or vehicles or terrain I might use in any of the Role-playing games I might end up running. 

And the rats... I am still thinking I might run the Undercargard Challenge sometime next year... 

Though I kind of slacked off this past week... I'd still like to try and paint MORE than I've purchased this year - at least for miniatures (there is no way I'm going to get all the terrain that came with all the Kill Team boxes done... maybe that will be a project for NEXT YEAR!?) I have three months - about thirteen weeks 91 days. I've purchased 132 x 28mm miniatures and I've painted 62. I need to paint 70 more to "break even" - that's about three miniatures every four days... Nearly one a day... If I DID one a day, on average, I'd be totally in the black!? Maybe that's what I need to shoot for...? 

I just need to paint a miniature a day... and NOT BUY ANY MORE... 

Of course, now that I've typed that, GW will probably release an Emperor's Children Codex with a new Noise Marines box.... and, dammit, they'll probably simultaneously release a new Kill Team box that's, like, Noize Marines versus Goff Rockers - a 40K battle of the bands... and... it would just be so ridiculous that I just couldn't NOT buy THAT!?!? fuckers... Or a brand new version of Battlefleet Gothic!? 

September Games

As alluded to in August Games, Amanda and I were on vacation at the end of August... well... *I* was on vacation... SHE had a conference to go to for half of the trip. The trip extended into September... 

Saturday, 2 September 2023

On the final Saturday of our trip I was thrilled to be able to meet up with my old friend Christian. We have known each other since...1988...? 35 years!? Yeah. He is currently posted to CFB Borden and was able to hope on a GO train in the wee hours at Barrie and rolled into Toronto just after 9am. Amanda and I walked to meet him at Union Station, then we made a meandering journey to Snakes and Lattes on College (with a brief stop at Meeplemart!) 

I DID NOT BUY ANYTHING AT MEEPLEMART!!! (I wainted until I got home and just mail-ordered it to save having to haul it back in luggage! Quite the little store!)

At Snakes and Lattes, we ordered some food and thought wed blast through a quick game of Splendor while we waited...

Alas, the food arrived before we finished... 

I had a veggie murger that was... Okay... Christian really enjoyed his burger and Amanda said the salad she has was AMAZING!? 

After eating we played Terraforming Mars. It was weird playing it without Prelude! Didn't end up with as much greenery on the board as when it's just Amanda and me playing.  

My playing area at the end of the game. I had the Mining Guild and did very well with it. Amanda played Tharsis Republic and Christian played Phoblog... It was a VERY close game, I think there was a 4 point difference between first and last place!

Amanda ditched us to go meet with a friend of hers that had also come into town for the weekend, so Christian and I played a few more LIGHTER games (as Terraforming Mars had tired my brain out!). We started with Azul. 

After that we played Carcassonne. Again, just playing with the base game, which I am not really used to. The tiles were VERY worn from use! 

Afterwards we wandered about, checked out the Beguiling (I bought too many books). Met up with Amanda and got some supper. Then made our way back to Union Station for Christian to catch his train back to Barrie. 

Wow... Such a great day of gaming and catching up with one of my absolute favourite human beings that I don't get to see nearly enough! I hope we can get another online role-playing game going again in the fall!!

Saturday, 16 September 2023

Met up with Chris, Christian and Woody online to make characters for the new Blade Runner Roleplaying game. 

Chris and Chrisitian are both playing human Blade Runners who have been partners for some time. Woody is playing one of the new Nexus-9 Replicant Blade Runners and has been assigned to work with the two veterans. The original two are not entirely certain they like the idea of a replicant working with them.

Unfortunately, because... LIFE... we won't get to play until sometime in October!?

And... that was it... 

I'd really hoped we'd get in a game of Crows with Keiran... Alass... 

I do hope we'll get back to playing more games once the renovation is DONE and everything is moved back into place (or into it's NEW place)... More on that in Game Plan 2023 - Q4, which I'll probably be posting tomorrow...? 

Ninja All-Stars: Yagyu Jubei

 Well, the plan to paint one miniature every other day is not going great... 

All I got done in the last week and a half is a solitary Ninja All-Stars miniature - Yagyu Jubei

Yagyu Jubei

Yagyu Jubei is a Ronin Mercenary, originally from the Sun Court. He travelled to  Kagejima to see witness the Moonlight Tournament he'd heard so many tales of. upon experiencing the tournment he vowed to stay until he learned all he could. 

Not helping my plan to paint more than I've purchased this year... I BOUGHT MORE THINGS!?!?

Clan Tanchyo team for Ninja All-Stars...

In my defence, they were pretty cheap... Like, some Marketplace seller on Amazon had them and clearly thought of them as "dead stock" and were blowing them out. They were less than HALF what other sellers were selling Ninja All-Stars teams for, and even less than it would cost me to order a team from Ninja Division... and as an extra bonus, these ones are packaged for Ninja All-Stars, which means they come with the cards and stats for Ninja All-Stars! (These miniatures are still available from Ninja Division, but Ninja All-Stars is long out of print and the miniatures have been repurposed for use with Super!Dungeon!Explore!). 

It doesn't REALLY matter about being in the original packaging, because, unlike SO MANY OTHER GAMES.... ALL of the rules and stats for ALL of the minituares that were EVER available for the game... were in the core boxed set!? Having the cards that came with this box is nice... but not NECESSARY!!!

Maybe they aren't blowing them out... The game came out in 2016. The price could be the original price... they just still had them kicking around and didn't see any purpose in raising the price (as others have done) because they are "scarce" or "collectables"... 

ALSO!?!?! Clan Tanchyo is one of the two clans NOT included in the original base game box set! So... 

I'm not sure WHAT prompted me to LOOK on Amazon in the first place...? I was probably looking for somethings else and it popped up as a suggestion as I'd been looking to see what was available the week before...? It's crazy, some sellers are selling individual Ronin (like Jubei, here) for MORE than this entire team cost me!? How could I pass on that!? Ha-ha.... 

Chibi Dwarves

 

A pair of weird chibi Dwarves I picked up a few years back. I can't even remember HOW I even found these... I think they were from an online store in... Russia...? and were dirt cheap. I got four bags of ...? LOTS like 50? or 100? there were dwarves, Orcs, Skeletons and Knights and I got a bag of each in each back there are about for or five poses, and then the reverse of each pose, and a few of each pose...? I think it was five different poses and the reverse of each (which makes 10 diferent poses) and then five of each of the poses - making 50... Yeah, that makes more sense.  

Originally I think i may have been thinking I might have enough to make a few units for Dragon Rampant? If there was 50 in a bag, that really isn't enough to make Dragon Rampant armies, so I'm guessing I was thinking that if they didn't suck, I'd order MORE of each? (Or maybe it was; If these ever show up and I don't totally get ripped off, I'll order more?!). That's just not going to happen now, so maybe they could be used for a fun Song of Blades and Heroes game...? But, in that case, I probably have way too many. 

They are similar in size to the Super Dungeon Explore miniatures. Perhaps I could find a way to integrate them into a game together? Again, Song of Blades and Heroes comes to mind. Though I have noticed that Ninja Division has their OWN small scale miniature skirmish rules to use Super Dungeon Explore miniatures with!?

Somehow these two dwarves stuck on the painting desk when all they others have been squirrelled away in drawers. I also finished these up on Sunday - along with the Rat Ogors... 

58 more miniatures to paint in the next 105 days to have painted more than I acquired this year... (assuming I don't BUY any more minatures!?). There are 15 weeks left in the year. If I did four per week (as I've done here) that would be 60! 

Rat Ogors

These have been, like, 95% complete for MONTHS and haunting the corners of thepainting desk for far too long! I've been getting together with a couple of friends on Discord for a paint and chat on Sunday afternoons for the last month, and when I was trying to decide what to work on this week... I decided it was time to finish these off! We only get together for a couple of hours and I figured there would be perfect, not so much work to be done that I'd be super focused on painting and not keeping up with the conversation... and it would mean two large based minis OFF of my painting desk

Rat Ogors

The miniatures are the old metal original Rat Ogre models from Citadel Miniatures. the one without the sword I think doubled as a Blood Bowl player. 

I put them on 50mm bases - as that is the current "recommended" size for Rat Ogors... and the bases seem a touch big. The newer plastic ones are considerably bigger (and that's what the recommended base size is based on). I probably could have gone with 40mm... but I think I'm just going to leave them for now.  

I have three or four more Rat Ogors to paint, but they're all newer models - the last of the metal ones that were made. They're bigger than these and don't look so ridiculous on 50mm bases. So, for consistency, I'll probably keep them all on 50mm bases. 

I think I have enough Rat Ogors that there could be one for every warband - if the players felt like they wanted one! 

I should really get a game or two of Warcry in - that might get me motivated to paint some MORE of these Skaven! 

Ninja All-Stars - Spirit Shrine Shinobi and Samurai Sentry

 

I'm not entirely sure how Keiran ended up with Ninja All-Stars...? I think it might have been that I found it deeply discounted.... somewhere... and I knew they were really excited about Super Dungeon Explore... So we picked it up for them a few years back... 

I'm not sure if they even played it (they may have played it with Finnegan at one point..?). 

As I mentioned in the previous post, I think I wasbeen looking around on Meeplemart to see if they had anything else I could add to an order, as it is unlikely that I'll be ordering anything else any time soon... and I THINK I went looking at Soda Pop miniatures to see if they had any heroes for Super Dungeon Explore and they didn't but they had the two Ninja All Stars miniatures above and I remembered that Keiran the game and I must have got it in my head that I should order these two miniatures and paint them and I could paint up a couple of teams of the ones that Keiran had and maybe that might motivate them to play the game....? Maybe...?

Anyway, while I was waiting for the order to arrive, I decided I could try painting a few of the miniatures that Keiran already had... just to see how quick they might paint up and see if it motivated Keiran to get back to painting - or at least interested in playing if *I* painted all the miniatures!?

In the main box there are four teams Blue (Water), Red (Fire), Orange (Spirit), and Purple (Void). I am a fan of orange, so I grabbed a couple of those Shinobi and a Samurai Sentry and started painting. 

Spirit Shrine Madoushi, Kaiken, and Samurai Sentry. 

As much as a paint in the ass that orange is to paint over large surfaces and get an even coat... (Seriously, there were three different shades of orange I used, and needed to do TWO COATS OF EACH!?) I think they turned out okay and would kind of like to finish up the rest of the team! 

Spirit Shrine Madoushi

Spirit Shrine Kaiken

Samurai Sentry

If Keiran were to show any interest in playing I'd probably do the Void Shrine next and finish up the Samurai Sentries. 

I also have a few little shrine-like terrain bits that came with the last Reaper Bones I could paint up to substitute in for the shrine tokens in the game... maybe... 

State of Miniature Painting

The second order from Meeplemart arrived yesterday with  The Crows boardgames, Litanies of the Lost for Wrath and Glory and... 

These two miniatures for Ninja All-Stars that I happen to see they still had... (just... don't ask...) 

Updating my Painted vs. Purchased page (and the list took on the left (if your looking at this on a home computer and not a phone...), I noticed that broughts my total of 29mm Miniatures Acquired for 2023 to 118... 

So far, I have only painted 53...

then I started comparing and that sent me down a whole rabbithole of crunching numbers and thinking about things... 

If I paint four more I'll match last year's total... but will still have acquired 61 more miniatures than I've painted. So I got thinking about how I could, at the very least, paint MORE than I've acquired. I need to paint 65 just to break even. There are 109 days left in the year. If I painted ONE MINIATURE PER DAY that would be 162, which would be brilliant - well over what I've acquired and on my way to brining down the mountain of shame (though, it's not really much of a mountain, they're actually all very neatly organized in drawers in the game room...). 

Is it realistic to think I could paint a miniature per day...? Maybe... Maybe not... If I did one every other day for the rest of the year that would only be 54 and bring my total to 107, just shy of what I need... so I need to paint a little more than one every other day.  

Looking back at the last decade and a half (since I started tracking painted vs. purchased) there are only four years I was "in the black" (having painted MORE than I purchased). 

In the previous 15 years I have acquired 13222 28mm miniatures (an average of 881/year),  but only painted 9643 (an average of 642/year)...

To get caught up, I need to spend the next 15 years painting 239 MORE miniatures than I acquire... 

Can I DO that...? 

Will I even LIVE that long?!

I don't know... 

Maybe lets start with just painting more miniature than I acquire from here on out! So that means painting a little more than one miniature every other day for the rest of the year. 

What miniatures am I going to paint? NO IDEA!?  

The ones most likely to be finished next are these three:

Three Ninja All-Stars miniatures from the game Keiran got a few years back. I don't know WHAT got me thinking I should paint these up...?! 

I think I'd been looking around on Meeplemart to see if they had anything else I could add to the second order, as it is unlikely that I'll be ordering anything else any time soon... and i THINK I went looking at Soda Pop miniatures to see if they had any heroes for Super Dungeon Explore and they didn't but they had the two Ninja All Stars miniatures above and I remembered that Keiran had that game, but we'd never played it and I must have got it in my head that I should order these two miniatures and paint them and I could paint up a couple of teams of the ones that Keiran had and maybe that might motivate them to play the game....? Maybe...?

Anyway, the Samurai Sentry is pretty much done and the two Shinobi just need a few finishing touches and that will be THREE that I've done...? 

What will be next...? Who knows... could be the two new Ninja All-Star minis... Could be more from the box set (to finish a team... or finish the sentries...?) Or SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!? 

If I were in a place that I could actually make a PLAN and STICK TO IT(!?) - I'd probably count out a few Kill Teams (Ninja All-Star teams?) and clear everything off the painting tables and just work on those until they are done... but that doesn't seem to work at all anymore.. so... we'll just have to see...