February Gaming Weekend.

 I've started thinking about a February Gaming Weekend. For the past 17 years, i've organized some sort of gaming event around my birthday at the end of February - the Annual Wargaming Birthday BasH! Sometimes its been a single afternoon or evening - usually a multiplayer miniature game of some sort with a few friends. Other times it's been and entire weekend of gaming - either a campaign or a mini, invitational con. Other times, just a few games with the family... 

I’m really trying to stay positive and plan as though we WON’T be in a FIFTH Wave of Covid… or STILL Be riding out an extended (never-ending) fourth wave!?   (Not that there are going to be any more restrictions of movements or visitations, regardless of how many die, this government had made clear!). But, these things often work out better if there has been some planning beforehand…. So I am thinking about it and trying to make plans… 

To get started, I recently catalogued all of the previous events on a separate page, recently...

Wargaming Birthday Bashes

A couple predate this blog - I was lucky to find a couple pictures of one of the pre-blog games (going through back-up CDs from previous computers, sifting through piles of old pictures)... but could find nothing for the first one... 

Putting this together and reviewing all these events, brought up a rollercoaster of memories ranging from pure joy to total despair. These constitute some of my favourite gaming memories, ever. Simultaneously many bring up feelings of soul-crushing misery and utter  despondency… 

Every year there was that one person (or two, or three) that insisted on RUINING ALL THE FUN (for ME, at least, They probably still had a great time!).  Whether it was the constant complaints about the system (the tabletop game itself and/or campaign rules), or their constant demanding for rulings about stupid bullshit they should have known the answer for if they read the rules and weren’t trying to seek advantage through rules lawyery, or just finding loopholes in either the game rules or the campaign rules and totally exploiting them…. 

There are more than a few of these people that have also showed up at many of these events that ALWAYS caused trouble and made me never want to run one again…  I've tried to stay positive in game reports and not mention these things plainly... Ignore it… "Let it go"... But it happened and, looking back at them, even now, I wonder, is the stress they cause worth it?!

Some I can simply NEVER invite again (finally got that solution through my thick head). A big problem is a few of them still live here in Saskatoon and THESE are the people that are almost ALWAYS available… and worst part is... some of them are truly generous, fantastic human beings… Y’know, OUTSIDE of gaming… 

On the flip side, there ARE about a dozen people that have come to multiple games over the years that totally make it worthwhile and never cause any sort of trouble or headaches. They are the reason I have carried on. They would be my DREAM TEAM of players for a game weekend… Unfortunately, over half of them don’t even live in Saskatoon and it is a big deal for them to get here… especially in February… especially in the middle of a pandemic… 

How does one get a Dream Team of players to show up, while not hurting good friends (who are terrible people to play games with)? 

That being said…. Problem Person(s) played in the Necromunda game (the last big one I ran in 2020, both at my Birthday Bash and again at ToonCon… I won’t say which it was the Problem Person(s) showed up at…) and didn’t cause much trouble… I think this was largely due to scenario design. There was a need to work together, to a certain extent (if the common enemy, played by me, was not stopped, EVERYONE LOST!! And Karloth Valois and his horde of Scavvies and Plague Zombies were NO PUSH-OVERs!), and there was no great benefit to being a dink (each had secret, individualized objectives and victory points - mostly points were awarded for dealing damage to Valois and his crew... but each gang had ONE other gang or gang memeber that they had some sort of vendetta against and could gain points by taking ONE specific character out.).… so… no one was really THAT much of a dink… 

I also find it hard to make plans and get things prepared when I get a luke-warm commitment from many people… Which I've gotten a lot of over the years, and especially the last few. “Well, I’d LOVE to… but we’ll have to see… I can’t plan that far in advance…” when it’s, y’know, just two months away…. Somehow people can make plans to go on holidays, or go to weddings, or go to (AND/OR ORGANIZE) larger conventions up to (and sometimes more than) a YEAR in advance on a specific day/weekend/week… but can’t say if they can make it to my thing until the week before…?! WTF!? 

The last wargaming weekend I'd planned (a Necromunda campaign in the fall of 2019) which I had done SO MUCH WORK FOR (painting multiple gangs for people to use if they didn't have one and a bunch of terrain)... got cancelled because I got a bunch of "maybes", which turned into "NOPEs" in the last week or so coming up to the planned weekend for the event. (Luckily I was able to make use of it all in the following Birthday Bash/ToonCon event) 

(Except for the problem people… they can ALWAYS commit and will definitely make it…) 

Anyway…. 

I digress... 

Back to THE PLAN…

This also happens to be a BIG ONE - as this will be my FIRST HALF-CENTURY celebration! 

(Seriously, how the fuck did I actually make it this far!?) 

(Ooh! Maybe I should start the day with a half-century ride!) 

(but, like, a metric half-century... and only if its NOT -40°C!?) 

AND, my Birthday IS on a Friday, so it seems like it would be fun to use that to kick off a whole WEEKEND of festivities! 

But what format to take…? A weekend long campaign of some sorts - either tabletop miniatures (which could be competitive or co-op/semi-co-op) or a role-playing game? Or something more like a mini-con with a number of different events/games over the weekend. 

I think my favourite option is a co-operative, tabletop miniature adventure campaign - where the “players” are all on the same side and have one character/hero and/or a small unit of some sort, that fight against antagonists controlled by a GM (i.e. ME!) - and play through a series of linked adventures - possibly requiring collection artifacts or clues or completing objectives before they can move on, and culminating in a BIG BOSS BATTLE at the end of the weekend…?

But a lot of that depends on who is available that weekend, how much of that weekend they are available, and what they are interested or willing to commit to playing.  

Over a weekend I generally, mentally break it down into 5-7 game "slots":

1. Friday Night
2. Saturday Morning
3. Saturday Afternoon
4. Saturday Evening
5. Sunday Morning?
6. Sunday Afternoon
7. Sunday Evening ?

So... Campaign or Mini-con?

CAMPAIGN

Role-Playing Game or Miniatures?

ROLE-PLAYING GAME

Advantage to role-playing games - if things do go sideways, Pandemic-wise, I could always switch to Online… like I did for my birthday this past year. 

• Fate? 
• Wrath & Glory? 
• Something Else!? (unlikely) 

MINIATURES

Competitive campaign/mini-tournament OR a co-op/semi-co-op tabletop adventure (like RPG - but miniature combat focused where all the Players are on the same side fighting enemies controlled by a game master - i.e ME!) 

Competative Campaign/Tournement

Competitive campaigns/tournaments I could potentially run... 

• Hordes of the Things
• DBA
• Necromunda
• Kill Team
• 40K Combat Patrol
• Frostgrave
• Stargrave
• Warcry

• The Silver Bayonet

While a LOT of fun... there are almost always a LOT of problems with these... 

Co-op/Semi-Coop

As mentioned before, this is probably more most favourite option. Running a series of tabletop miniature adventures where all the of the players are (more or less) on teh same side, battling against foes controlled by ME - ultimately culminating in some kind of "Epic Boss Battle"!  Some of the games I have and could again run as a cooperative or semi-cooperative :

• Savage Worlds
• Age of Sigmar
• Warcry
• Kill Team
• 40K
• Necromunda 
• Song of Blades and Heroes
• Frostgrave
• Stargrave
• The Silver Bayonet
• Warhammer Quest (like Blackstone Fortress or any of the Age of Sigmar ones...) 

Team Option (Semi-Coop/Competitive)

The "All Quiet Campaign" - two teams with multiple players- each player commanding a squad or Kill Team within a platoon or similar larger formation... it uses set terrain representing a stagnant part of the front where the fighting has more or less ground to a halt. The teams are holding that section of the line for a period of three days and three nights. A series of six scenarios are played over that time period. Not all troops are used for each mission. Some are active (on the mission out in No Mans' Land), some can be on stand-by (sentries, holding the trenches or whatever), some are out-of-the-line and resting... Quality of troops degrades if they are used twice in a row (i.e. without resting)...?

MINI-CON

There are definitely some advantages to running a "Mini-Con". I can mix it up and play some different things. There could be somewhat less prep involved - especially if a few of them are board games and I dont have to worry about an airtight campaign system. Also, no one has to commit to WHOLE weekend - people could “sign up” for just ONE slot. 

The weekend could look something like:

• Friday Night - One-Shot Role-Playing Game
• Saturday Morning - Miniature Skirmish 
• Saturday Afternoon -  Miniature Skirmish 
• Saturday Evening - Miniature Skirmish 
• Sunday Morning -  Board Game
• Sunday Afternoon - Board Game 
• Sunday Evening - Board Game 

OR

• Friday Night - One-Shot Role-Playing Game
• Saturday Morning - Miniature Skirmish 
• Saturday Afternoon -  Board Game 
• Saturday Evening - Miniature Skirmish 
• Sunday Morning -  Board Game
• Sunday Afternoon - Miniature Skirmish 
• Sunday Evening - Board Game 

Just to mix it up a little... 

OR... have the one-shot RPG on the Saturday evening, half-way through...

OR... it could be ONE board game on Sunday... but, like, a bigger one with many players taking all day to play... 

Lots of possibilities here... 

COME-AND-GO CAMPAIGN

A third option I've been considering since I started this planning and writing this a week or so ago is a "Come-And-Go Campaign. This would be a semi-co-op miniature campaign - involving a number of linked scenarios played over the weekend that create a bit of a narrative... BUT... it could involve DIFFERENT characters/groups - played by different participants that could show up for just one session, or ALL of them. Ideally, there would be one or two that would play the entire weekend and would be the "Lead Heroes" that assemble the varied groups of allies to fight... whatever it is that they are fighting...? 

OR... 

...maybe I'll just play some games with my family again, like I did last year... 

Kind of still leaning towards co-op tabletop miniature adventure... possibly with come-and-go option... 

Terrain Bits and Tokens.

 Just a few little things rolling off the workbench... 

I finished up four little wall bits and three clue/treasure tokens. 

The Wall bitz arrived this summer with the Reaper Bones V Kickstarter stuff. I also got Walls of thorn, but they're tricker to assemble (and PAINT!), so, it might be some time before I get to those... probably when I actually have someone who NEEDS them. 

One of the Tokens (the book) I actually just rebased. The other two are newly painted, tho. Teh Book and Backpack came from the Dwarf Gold Fever kickstarter by Lead Adventure Miniatures. The little imp sitting on the skull (facing away!? I guess its's shy!) - I think - came from a Reaper Miniatures set of metal familiars. 

while I was at it... I took a few more pictures of things on the workbench.... 

Dwarves I'm working on - also from Dwarf Gold Fever kickstarter by Lead Adventure Miniatures - they will form the hired soldiers part of a Thaumaturge's warband in Frostgrave. 

I did manage to track down some more Space Marine Scouts for my Imperial Fists Space Marine Scout Kill Team. I picked them up off ebay and they were previously painted. So, Ive had to strip these (and the two other snipers that came with the unit) and have based and primed and started painting these three... 

There are a few other things starting to creep back onto the workbench that I really need to CLEAR OFF so I can FOCUS and get things done... but I've run out of the little storage boxes Im using to hold "ON DECK" or upcoming projects in the queue.  

Stocktaking 2021

Every few yeas I do some sort of stocktaking - where I go through every draw and box I use to store miniatures and count them all up and publish the numbers as totals and painted versus unpainted across a number of categories Period/Genre then by Foot/Mounted/Guns/Monsters/Vehicles… 

Here are a few of those posts:

January 2008 - Taking Stock of Stock Taking 

October 2009 - More Lies

November 2016 - Stocktaking 2016

Partly I do it out of curiosity. I love statistics and data - you can’t properly make decisions about how to move forward if you don’t properly know where you are at! Often, there is also an element of trying to SHAME myself into NOT BUYING MORE STUFF! I have gotten a BIT better (a very little bit) at buying less stuff… I wanted to take a bit more of a positive approach this time around. 

I have to admit, I’m kind of flailing here. I have too many projects I want to work on - too many games I want to play - too many miniatures I want to paint and I want to DO IT ALL RIGHT NOW!!!! Obviously that can’t be done. 

The Silver Bayonet has been a bit of a revelation for me (or a reminder, really).  A new game that was shiny and exciting - that I could just play right away and didn’t NEED to really paint much. The Dragon Rampant game I played earlier this year with stuff I’d painted ages ago (which I'm not sure I'd EVER played with, and then some of which was rebased more recently - like, last year... and then STILL never got around to playing with) 

I’d really like to play MORE miniature games. I mean, THIS is a MINIATURE WARGAMING BLOG after all!? Miniature games are its raison d’être! I like miniature games that are more like role-playing games - narrative-based, designed scenarios - ideally as part of a campaign that continue the narrative through a series of games. Doesn’t have to have a crunchy, campaign “system” - in fact, I’m starting to believe that there really isn’t a codified rules system for miniature campaigning that will ever really work all that well… (more on that in another post… do’t hold your breath though, it’s been sitting as a draft for over a month and a half…) 

One of the biggest, but conceivably fixable barriers I have to more gaming is WAY TOO MANY miniatures in my current painting space. There is a circular pattern I've noticed to gaming and painting habits. I get motivated to play games and dream up scenarios for games WHILE painting miniatures… Conversely, playing the games motivates me to paint more miniatures for a game! I feel like I’m not doing much of either, right now, and a lot of that block, has to do with the lack of getting things done and the reason I’m not getting things done is the aforementioned TOO MANY MINIATURES ON THE PAINTING TABLE! On the rare occasion I am not feeling too overwhelmed by it all, and I actually DO a little work on any of the projects, I will do a bit of work on this and a bit of work on that and a bit of work on the other thing  and NONE of it EVER gets FINISHED!

this is what my painting station and the surrounding area is currently looking like... 

(sorry about the blurry pictures, there is really terrible lighting in this room!?) 

Stuff on the desk, proper - at least six different kill teams, two Warhammer Underworlds warbands, an assortment of miniatures for The Silver Bayonet, Objective Markers for 40K/Kill Team... 

On one of the wings - MOAR Kill Teams... MOAR Warhammer Underworlds Warbands - some more 40K stuff to expand current Kill Teams into Combat Patrols for 40K... 

One of many other precarious piles in the immediately surrounding areas of stuff that was one the table and was temporarily shifted off to make room for new stuff... or brought up and realized there was no room for it and left in a pile nearby.... 

None of this is new... I made this same realization earlier this year and this is what was supposed to happen - ONE unit/warband/project on the table at a time and the rest in labelled boxes nearby to grab the next project when I finished the one I was working on... 

So what does this all have to do with stock-taking? 

STEP ONE 

BEFORE stocktaking... I want to reboot CLEAR OFF the workstation and everything around it… REboot the mess of it and spread it all out on the BIG GAME TABLE downstairs and, that leads us to...

STEP TWO

The Stock-taking - go through it all - and all the other stuff in boxes and drawers and take stock of things, GAME-by-GAME. Rather than just cont number of painted and unpainted of this and that, I’d like to see what I HAVE for the games I’d really like to play sort out the forces that I’ve collected to play those games and see where I’m at with them. What is DONE? What else NEEDs to be don in order to actually be able to PLAY the game? What else do I have that COULD be done, that would add options for new scenarios and build the narrative, etc. 

THEN, put stuff in labelled boxes and have a general idea of what things I want to do in what order and go back to ONE warband/unit/etc on the table at a time... and the rest in clearly labelled boxes so I can find the next one, ONCE I"M DONE the one I'm currently working on! 

What ARE those games I’d like to play!? 

Well, I have been playing a LOT of Games Workshop games the last few years - 40K, Kill Team, Necromunda, 40K Apocalypse, Age of Sigmar, Warcry, Warhammer Underworlds, Warhammer Quest (Blascktone Fortress, Cursed City),etc… I am still very interested in all of these and have a LOT of stuff I could play with. 

I also have a LOT of other games I’d like to try or get back to playing… All of the Dan Mercy games - Lion Rampant, Dragon Rampant, The Pikeman’s Lament, Rebels and Patriots, Men Who Would Be Kings, etc… All the games based on the Song of Blades and Heroes game engine developed by Andrea Sfiligoi - Song of Blades and Heroes, A Fistful of Kung Fu, Fear and Faith, Flying Lead, Of Gods and Mortals, Song of Shadows and Dust, etc. A bunch of the games by Joseph McCullough - Frostgrave, The Silver Bayonet, Stargrave, etc (I wouldn’t mind picking up Rangers of Shadowdeep at some point and giving THAT a try…). And so many others - De Bellis Antiquitatis, Hordes of the Things, One-Hour Wargames, One-Hour SKIRMISH Wargames, Force on Force, Ronin, En Garde, 

Over the next month, or so, I'm going to take stock for each of these games - and post about where things are at - and, hopefully, that will help with making some decisions about what to do in the new year - what games I will play, what things I will focus on to paint - which will likely be revealed in the 2022 Game Plan! 

I was thinking I would like to PLAY and post a game report for 50 miniature games next year - about one per week - this seems like it should be an easy thing to do. I have so much I can already play with. I have at least two people in the house that are, usually, willing to humour me and play a game from time to time... and I'm totally willing to try out some SOLO gaming with Frostgrave (using Perilous Dark) or The Silver Bayonet...? 

We shall see... 

Ludmilla Farhazzi - Azur Wizard

One of the recent rebasing projects... 

My friend John picked up a copy of Frostrgrave Second Edition for me - as part of a bribe to paint some miniatures for him (including some Frostgrave miniatures). I have not played Frostgrave in ages. It's not that I stopped liking the game... I just... y'know... got distracted by other things (Vimy Project, which was pretty all-consuming for the better part of a year) and just haven't gotten back to it yet... In addition to doing some work on John's miniatures, I took a look at the rules, briefly, and tried to organize a couple warbands and started rebasing them in readiness for trying out the new edition... at some point... probably in the fall. 

I finished this first warband for Amanda as it only required rebasing (and a few touch-ups). I'm organizing another for myself, but it requires finishing up a few minis. I still have the Jade and Gold wizards that could go at anytime... and so many others that could be cobbled together.

I'm not sure exactly which type of wizard Ludmilla will be, I might just leave that to Amanda to figure out. I'm thinking she kind of looks like an Illusionist, though

Ludmilla Farhazzi - Azur Wizard - and her warband

Ludmilla Farhazzi (right) and her apprentice, Grace. (left).

Ivanka  and Ariana - the two "specialist" archers.

Jane and Bianca - Women-at-Arms

Mandy and Zora - Thieves

Belladonna and Kate - thugs

With these I was trying out my new cobblestone rollers from Green Stuff World. I was kind of still getting the hang of them with these... I like them. I might end up rebasing the other Frostgrave warbands similarly. I like being able to paint the names on the back of bases. 

Trying out a new (to me) camera, that is actually of an older generation of the one I was previously using. The older one had a scratch on the lens and always had a blurry spot right in the middle of the pictures and it was just too irritating... but I am loathe to look for new things - especially anything tech-related. Finnegan happened to get a gift card from his school for some sort of points accumulated over the last few years? Amanda used it to get him a new, FANCY camera - as he is taking a photography class in the fall and been talking about doing YouTube videos. So, I've got HIS hand-me-down camera (which he barely ever used. EVER. It's taking some getting used to, but it's nice to finally have clear photos again! 

I'm not sure when we'll ever get to playing Frostgrave... Maybe I'll get a campaign going in the fall... or, maybe I won't. I definitely want to play some Age of Sigmar soon and would very much like to get a Paths to Glory campaign going - that I hope will carry on into the fall! 

I also want to get my Soulbound game going with my out-of-town buddies - AND might even want to try getting a SECOND going, in person... 

So... not sure when Frostgrave might fit into that. Maybe it'll be a once-a-month thing...? 

Or a "Maybe-Next-Year" thing...