Horror, Harlequins, and a Vivandière - a Painting Update

  I have been painting... a little bit... 

The first two items are things I actually painted a couple months ago, but just didn't get around to posting. I was waiting for... something else...? to get finished to post along with them, but that just insn't happeneing and i want them off the workbench. 

Now that I look at them, they probably need some grass tufts to truly be finished... But that isn't done at the painting table, and I just want to get these OFF the painting table... 

Vivandière from Matchlock Miniatures

Horror from Reaper Miniatures. 

All the Harlequins and other Eldar on the workbench. I've got most of the first new troupe of Harlequins done and the other two that I have are well on the way (and the final troupe should be arriving soon!)

These three are pretty much done. 

These three... just about there... just needing a detail or highlight or two...

Ugh... Why did I think harlequins would be a good idea!? 

I Did a Thing

 In a moment of flagging impulse control...

So I guess I WILL have that 50 Power - Incursion Level Battalion Detachment of Harlequins after all... Y'know... If I EVER get them all painted!? How hard could it be!? It's 24 miniatures... 24 highly-detailed, wildly patterned miniatures... 

Bonus - there are two more than I need for a troupe of six - which means I can swap out a couple of the others I have that are bearing more esoteric weapons that the Harlequins are no longer allowed to use (like the one with a laspistol and weber...!") 

I guess I better get to work on the Harlequins (and other Eldar) that I already HAVE then! 

Game Plan 2022 - Q2

I don't know WHAT I was thinking when I came up with the Q1 Plan for this year back in... like... mid-December of last year!? Feeling absurdly optimistic about the end of the pandemic, perhaps..? 

Some of it worked out... 

Most of it...? 

Not-so-much... 

A lot of that had to do with a whole new wave of Covid and the provincial government just deciding it was "over" and dropping all public health requirements and "moving on". They won't even publish information about the state of things (mostly because they don't know - because most testing has stopped). Through most of February and March the death rate in Saskatchewan has been as high or higher than any point in the pandemic in so far. Through much of it the death rate was the HIGHEST IN CANADA - and for a week or two higher than the next two highest, COMBINED - and that included Alberta and Manitoba!? 

So we didn't do a LOT of gaming with people outside of the family - only had the occasional friend over - mostly others who have relatively small "bubbles"... 

50 Miniature Games

This has not happened... Instead of a miniature game (and GAME REPORT) every week, I played ONE miniature game...

5x5 (Quarterly) Challenge

I did play some other games, though, and did try to do the challenge - play five different games five times each. 

I had guessed I might play:

1. Silver Bayonet
2. Frostgrave or Stargrave or Rangers of Shadowdeep
3. Wingspan 
4. Other Board Game
5. Other Board Game

I DID manage to play five different game at least five times... but it ended up being... 

1. Five Tribes x7
2. Wingspan x7
3. Azul x6
4. Terraforming Mars x6
5. Carcassonne x5

Other games I played included:

• Splendor x2
• Wrath & Glory x2
• Bananagrams x1
• For Sale x1
• Marrying Mr. Darcy x1
• The Silver Bayonet x1

Wargaming Birthday Bash/February Game Weekend

I'd had some wild plans for a Great Big Birthday Bash for the big FIVE-OH.... But, for a number of reasons, that just didn't happen. (Covid... General Malaise... Despondency... ) 

TOONCON

There IS a ToonCon going on this year. It's actually NEXT weekend. 

I'm totally not going. 

OTHER EVENTS

Nothing much else has happened thus far... I did sign up for the Hunters of the Warp 40K Spring League... but I have my doubts that I'll actually get any games in.

PAINTING

I DID paint a few things... I did spend a LOT of time and energy re-basing a lot of miniatures - mostly 40K, and mostly Eldar. But some other stuff as well. 

What did I get painted?

• 1x Gug
• 7x Napoleonic French Naval Officers and Crew
• 13x Regency Monster Hunter
• 1x Lifeguard Cavalryman
• 3x Treasure/Clue Tokens

Not a lot... 

On the plus side... I didn't really BUY much either... and don't really have any plans to!? 

One Regency Monster Hunter arrived that I'd ordered in 2021 and wasn't shipped with the rest of the order (that showed up in December!?) 

I bought Warhammer Underworlds: Harrowdeep – Blackpowder's Buccaneers (5 miniatures) and teh Warhammer 40000 Kill Team : Nachmund box which included ten Corsair Voidscarred and ten Chaos Space Marine and some terrain... and that's it!? 

Q2 GAME PLAN 2022

So... the next three months... 

5x5 (Quarterly) Challenge

I will attempt to play five different games, at least five times each... Do I have ANY idea what those might be? Nope. 

One might be Five Tribes. There seems to be a resurgence in interest in that. 

Terraforming Mars and Wingspan seem to not be slowing down. Not sure if both will end up part of the Q2 5x5 Challenge, but I'm sure they will be played at some point this Quarter and they'll definitely end up as part of the 2022 10x10 Challenge... 

I REALLY WOULD like to get some miniature games going on... Could I get Kill Team back on the proverbial challenge map!? Or some 40K Combat Patrols? I don't know... we'll see... In two weeks one of Finnegan's classes wraps up and then he'll only be doing two, so hopefully we'll find some time to play then! 

OTHER GAMES 

MINIATURE GAMES

As I said, I REALLY WOULD like to get some miniature games going on... REALLY!!! Kill Team and 40K are of most interest at the moment. Warhammer Underworlds too. And Warhammer Quest - both Blackstone Fortress and Cursed City (though the latter would still require a lot of painting!). Necromunda...

I feel like it's been a little too long since I've played ANY and will likely have to do a lot of re-reading of rules... So I MIGHT just stick to ONE - or maybe TWO - Kill Team and 40K.. 

BOARD GAMES

There are a handful of boardgames that I wouldn't mind playing as well - but probably NOT five times... Some just because I haven't played them in a while... Others... well, also because I haven't played them in a while, but also one or two more plays would move them to the Five List (5+ Plays) to the Dime List (10+ Plays) on Board Game Geek. 

Century Golem: Eastern Mountains, Robo Rally, Marrying Mr. Darcy, and Hive - Pocket edtion - all just need one play to move to the Dime List (I'm SURE I've played Robo Rally WAY MORE than that... but that was all LONG BEFORE Board Game Geek was a thing...). Pax Renaissance also only needs one play, and I LOVED playing that, but I'm pretty sure it would require a lot of re-reading rules (and not exactly light and easy-to-read rules) to play that again... so... it's on the list, but I'm not holding my breath

Agricola, Castles of Mad King Ludwing, Hellboy: The Board Game, Monty Python Fluxx, and Samarkand all have 8 plays recorded (so, needing two to make it onto the Dime List...).

Maybe, like what happened with Five Tribes, one or two of these games might be hit and actually get played a few more times and make it onto the 5x5 Challenge list...? 

PAINTING (and purchasing?) 

Eldar and Chaos seem to be the priority, at the moment. Both for 40K and Kill Team. 

There's other stuff waiting in the wings... (SO MUCH stuff)... but I haven't really been spending a LOT of time painting this last bit and that doesn't seem likely to change, so I think it would be best if I rode the mild wave of enthusiasm for Eldar and Chaos stuff and FOCUS on getting stuff DONE for that. Maybe some of the 40K Terrain, too!

(Well... I haven't been painting a lot of MINIATURES... I have been doing a lot of PAINTING and drawing PICTURES!)

The first things I'd like to do is finish up the three troupes of Harlequin Players I have - because that's ALL the Harlequins I have and then they'd be DONE!

Then there are two guardians and three Howling Banshees I need to finish off complete units of those and would give me a lot more options for Patrol Detachments. 

After that...? maybe some MORE Assuryani (Craftworld Aeldari) - Ideally 15 Rangers, 3 Warlocks, 5 Swooping Hawks - as those would finish up what I'd need for an Incursion level Battalion Detachment. 

Or maybe focus on finishing up some more Kill Teams (or options for Kill Teams): assorted Veteran Guard, Orks Kommandos, T'au Pathfinders (TWO teams - one mine, one Finnegans), Eldar Corsairs and Chaos Space Marines. 

Then maybe painting up enough of the Chaos Space Marines I have to have an Incursion Level Force (Battalion Detachment) and extra options...? 

Purchasing...? 

I'll be lucky if I get half of this stuff above painted, I REALLY don't need any more... 

The new Necromunda Ash Wastes box looks SUPER COOL! Not buying it. I have SO MUCH Necromunda stuff yet to paint... and loads of post apocalyptic minis I could use for denizens of the Ash Wastes - if I felt the need to play out there (I MIGHT buy the book separately... MIGHT...)

The ONE THING I can think of that I'd like is six more old metal Harlequins - to make ONE MORE Troupe - which would bring me to a full 50 Power Rating - Incursion Level - Force of JUST HARLEQUINS! 

In the same vein, I wouldn't mind tracking down one more old metal Dark Reaper - to complete a unit of five. 

There will be another Warhammer Underworlds Warband... I MIGHT buy it... and there's to be a two team box at some point this year. Just because there is so little being produced for this "season" it wouldn't be hard to get it all,  so I might just do that in hopes that AT SOME POINT this year I get painting and playing again. There is NO CHANCE I'm going to be buying into any of NEXT Seasons stuff if I don't get painting and playing Harrowdeep, tho!? 

At some point during Q2 there will e another Kill Team box... I can't even imagine a pairing that would motivate me to buy that... Maybe if it was and Inquisitorial Kill Team fighting against all new NOISE MARINES... I'd totally buy that... Otherwise...? meh.

And that is it for my "plan". More like some very flexible "guidelines".

March Games

 

We played games this month. Here's what we got up to...  

Saturday, 5 March 2022

Saturday I picked up Five Tribes: Whims of the Sultan - so we can play Five Tribes with... well... FIVE. I guess I picked it up FOR Finnnegan, as Five Tribes is HIS game. 

I also picked up the new Aeldari Codex. 

In the late afternoon Amanda and I PLAYED Five Tribes... but it was just the two of us (as Finnegan was still running his D&D game), so we just played with the base game 

We played one game and I eked out a narrow victory, despite Amanda's protestations that I was abosloutely "destroying her" (219-209)

She had some time before she was going out to hang out with some friends, so we played again. 

Again, she was quite certain that I had won by "a lot", but it turned out that she had won - and by a much wider margin than I had in the previous game! (215-186)!!

Saturday, 12 March 2022

The following Saturday we played... 

you guessed it MORE Five Tribes! 

Once again, we played TWO games... 

Math is hard. I did each of these a few times because I kept not getting the same totals!? (I was pretty tired). eventually I busted out the calculator on the phone and added them up - and even THEN I was getting different answers!? so I kept doing them until I got the same answer three times in a row... then I figured it was safe enough to post withont someone with too much time on their hands adding it up and realizing I'd made a mistake and pointing it out in the comments... (please don't. I'll probably cry...) 

STILL hadn't tried out Whims of the Sultan, at this point, though... And, now that we'd played it five times, I kind of wanted to focus on playing a few other games to get THOSE to five plays for the 5x5 Challenge (Azul, Wingspan, and Carcassonne seemed most likely, at this point..). 

Friday, 18 March 2022

Friday evening Finnegan agreed to play Five Tribes with me and Amanda. 

It was a long, tiring week for Amanda. 

Once we got going, she livened up a bit. 

We were trying out the Whims of the Sultan expansion with it. I picked it up because Finnegan had said he was interested in playing this a lot more... and Amanda suggested this would be fun to play with Kurtis and Tanya... but that would be five if we ALL played together, and the base game only plays four. Whims of the Sultan, in addition to new, different tiles and the Whims of the Sultan cards (yet ANOTHER way to gain points!?), it adds components for a fifth player.

I thought we'd try it out with just us before trying to play with FIVE!? 

These goofballs... 

 

This ONE TILE netted me fifty points. With this one Djinn, I was able to add palm trees to the oasis, pretty much every turn... and the Oasis was adjacent to The Great Lake - a new tile, which is impassable (no meeples start on it or can be placed on it during the game) that DOUBLES the value of trees and palaces in adjacent tiles... so EACH of those palm trees were worth SIX points?! 

Yeah, I totally won that one... but not by much. We had a lot of laughs along the way... 

Saturday, 19 March 2022

The next evening Kurtis and Tanya came over to play... but then Finnegan decided NOT to play!? We played with Whims of the Sultan, anyway. 

Four player games (and, presumably five) are a whole different kettle of fish!? Because there are more players snapping up tiles and making use of meeples, you get a LOT FEWER turns at doing things before it's all over! So you really need to focus on... something.. in two player - and even three player games, I usually end up with a bit of everything. This game I ended without a single Djinn or ANY market goods card - which usually accounts for a large part of my total points... I still won the game. Amanda only controlled three tiles (out of potentially eight one can control!?) and had a single Djinn and not market goods... but she DID have the most Viziers, and in a four player game, that's a LOT or points (points + number of viziers you have + 10x the number of players you have MORE viziers than! so 30+ if you have the most in a four-player game! 

Wednesday, 23 March 2022

Amanda took a few days off this week and we actually played a game on Wednesday evening. 

Hadn't played Wingspan in a while so we busted that out. 

Amanda rocked the round end goals... In most cases she beat me out by ONE!? 

Mostly because I was too busy trying to fill my Forests and Grasslands with birds of ascending wingspans... The two bonus goal cards I had. That and the eggs and the Nectar just edged me ahead in the final tally! 

Thursday, 24 March 2022

Thursday, I somehow convinced Amanda to not only play ONE game of Carcassonne... 

but TWO games of Carcassonne!? 

She has admitted it's "not [her]favourite game"... But was "willing" to play... 

Friday, 25 March 2022

One more game of Carcassonne...

Saturday, 26 March 2022

Saturday Amanda suggested we play Wingspan in the afternoon... and then the games went SO FAST, we ended up playing THREE games!? 

Game One. At this point we were planning to just play ONE game - just to kill some time in the afternoon... 

pretty even spread on teh round end goals 

I got a BUNCH of points from bonus point cards... but Amanda eked out a win (I think from having a few more higher point birds) 

The first game went so fast, Amanda suggested we play again! 

This time I dominated the round end goads... and, well I DID win... by two points... but initially Amanda was suggesting that I was going to win by a LOT and when we initially tallied the points, SHE'D actually won - but then I remembered Id had a bit with a END GAME ability that would have put out more eggs on a all the birds in the wetlands, which pushed me past her. 

By the end of game two it was clear we were NOT going to get out and do any errands or projects about the house (it was really cold out. We were tired) and decided to play a THIRD

Again, I rocked the turn end goals, somehow!? 

But Amanda won this one, in the end, as well... 

It was a fun way to spend a cold lazy Saturday afternoon. 

I have a feeling Wingspan is going to be our most-played game again this year. We'll probably hit 50 plays by the end of the year (we are at 38 now!?) 

Monday, 28 March 2022

Keiran joined Amanda and myself for a quick game of Azul. 

Amanda just ROCKED the game - Yeah, that's her fillingalmost the ENTIRE BOARD with tiles - there is ONE SPACE left... she scored almost as much as me and Keiran together.. !? 

I didn't do TOO badly... probably one of my best games ever - I scored 118 points! Keiran did really good too, scoring 90-something... Amanda has 190-something, though!? it was CrAzY!? 

Thursday, 31 March 2022

On Thursday, Tanya, stopped by to exchange some stuff with Amanda and stuck around to play Azul... 

As with the last game (or so..?), Amanda and I were trying out the unprinted side - where you get to make up your own pattern. I tried to get fancy and not just do them on a diagonal (just like on the printed side, but in a different order) because my brain finds patterns amusing... 

This did not help me win. 

First game went so quick, Tanya stuck around for a second game! 

Still trying "funny" patterns. I did much better in the second game. But then so did everyone else... 

And that's IT for March!? AND the first quarter of 2022!? WTF!? 

Stay tuned, I should soon be posting my Q2 Game Plan... if it can even be called a "plan".