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...

What I DIDN'T Bring Back From Toronto

 Back from a trip out east. Well... east from where I live... Amanda had a work thing in Niagara Falls, and for the first time EVER, I got to tag along! We also had a few days in Toronto on either end of the trip, which was nice. While in Toronto I popped into two games stores - 401 Games (on Younge Street) and Meeplemart. For both I had a few things I was lookng for... but in the end decided I could just wait until I got home and MAIL ORDER it!? And that' what I did... 

401 games was INSANELY BUSY when we popped in. They had a LOT of stuff... but for the most part it was the same stuff I could get anywhere - including my own FLGS.

they also had a My Little Pony deck building game that I had not seen before. I took a picture to send to Finnegan... He didn't reply... I didn't get it... I figured we could get the Dragon's Den to order it in if anyone was THAT interested. 

They also had a shelf of smaller "indie" RPGs that... maybe if it wasn't so insanely busy and it wasn't so late in the day and I felt like I had time to fart around, I might have had a look through those for giggles. There was one I remember called Sapphic Space Pirates that I briefly thought of picking up thinking ONE of the kids might think it's fun... Kind of regret not picking it up now... 

The only thing I'd really been LOOKING for was a copy of Wrath & Glory: Redacted Records... which they had online, but they didn't have at that location... 

Later I got to pop into Meeplemart. Holy CRAP did they ever have a LOT of stuff there... it was a bit overwhelming. like boxes and boxes of miniatures in blister packs. I had a longer list of things to look for but didn't even know where to start with some of them and quickly decided it would be easier to just mail order the stuff when I got home - save me having to spend hours looking for things, save us having to try and figure out HOW to get it all packed into our luggage!? 

One of the first things I saw that hadn't been on my list was a copy of Pax Viking! Now, my local store has a copy of it... but this was nearly half the price they're selling it for locally. I realized later it was on the "Ding and Dent" shelf and there was a "ding" in the back of the box. I do LOVE the Pax series of games and ... HALF PRICE!? Amanda said we could figure out a way to stuff it into the luggage... I have my doubts it would have fit and it was at that point I for sure decided i'd just order stuff when I got home. 

Also saw this neat looking game called Crows (or... "Tyler Sigman's CROWS"...?) 

Keiran is ALL ABOUT crows these days, so I took some pics to remind myself to look it up and ask about it at the Dragon's Den. 

When I got home a week ago I placed an order for Pax Viking and a few of the miniatures and bitz I'd wanted. It arrived today!

The miniatures are a Turtle Warrior from Darksword Miniatures and a trio of Space Dwarf Special Operators from Kromlech Miniatures. the other packs are kilted legs from Kromlech... somehow I have a BUNCH of Imperial Guard Catachan torsos and arms and heads... but no legs!? I think they came in some used lot I picked up at some point. I thought it might be funny to make a Kill Team of Catachans in Kilts... 

There were a few more miniature items I had wanted to look for, but by the time I got home I'd talked myself out of them (some Tau and Aeldari aircraft for Aeronautica Imperialis, and the Cruel Seas core rulebook and a Vosper and S-Boat flotilla!? Maybe a few more things from Kromlech and Darksword miniatures...)

Of course I'd ordered this BEFORE checking into the availability of the Crows game... and it turns out it was a Kickstarter game from a few years back and is NOT-so-available and Meeplemart was selling it for quite a bit less than it seems most places were selling it for... so I placed ANOTHER order for that a day or two later (and a Wrath & Glory book...) 

Speaking of having to place extra orders... I also stopped into The Beguiling the same day (AMAZING comic book store!) and I'd had a list of things to look for there... but forgot to LOOK at the list... and I did remember a few of the things ( a couple of books by Ralph Steadman) I forgot to look for an art book by John Blanche their online catalogue said they had in stock... so now I've had to order THAT from them... Ah, well... 

While there (on the same day we went to Meeplemart and The Beguiling) I was able to meet up with one of my favourite humans in the whole world, my old pal Christian! He took the train down from Barrie (which is near CFB Bordern, where he is currently posted) and, in addition to checking out Meeplemart and The Beguiling, we played a bunch of games at Snakes and Lattes on College... but more on that in the Monthly Games Wrap-Up!