Game Matts

I've been wanting to get a few game matts for a LONG time... I first encountered them at the first 40K tournament I went to... like... SIX years ago... I've kind of wanted to get a few ever since. It was agreed upoon that I should get them after the Game Room was renovated.. It's been renovated for over two years now... It was time... 

HOWEVER... 

WHAT SIZE TO GET!? 

Six years ago I would have said 4'x6' without even thinking about it... (initially I didn't really consider matts... because I had a 5'x8' table and terrain tiles I'd made that could cover it completely!? My table isn't QUITE that big now, though... though I kept the two large chunks of MDF that made up the table to make into a tabletopper of sorts... I doubt I'll ever play a game THAT BIG again... I'm not even sure I have the patience for something that would be played on 4'x6' - Warhammer Games aren't even played on 4x6 anymore, the suggested size is 44"x60"!? But I don't even LOVE playing games that big... Do I get 2'x2' for small skirmishes...? or 3'x3'...? There are games I have that suggest both sizes... or 22"x30" - the size used for Warcry and Kill Team and Age of Sigmar: Spearhead...!?

In the end I settled on 44"x30"... it's the size recommended for 1000-1500 point Warhammer games... any games that are meant to be played on 3'x3' or 2'x2' can easily be played on with with little modification... They should fill a good chunk of the table for fairly large skirmishes or role-playing game encounters, but leave plenty of space for dice trays, character sheets, quick reference charts, books, reinforcements and dead... 

I ended up ordering three from FLG matts... I liked the pattern. I settled on a Grassland, Desert and Cobblestone... I was thinking about getting a Martian and/or Snow matt as well... but thought maybe I should just start with the three and see if I DO use them and maybe order more later... 

The parcel arrived while I was out.. I was a little disapointed to arrive home to see a box that was not nearly as long and skinny as I'd imagined... I had hoped they'd be shipped rolled up properly... 

Not-so-much... they were folded in the packaging they were sold in... and those were folded into a box... 

So...  they're pretty wrinkled... 

This one's called "Prairie"

"Civic Cobblestone"

Honsetly... those cobbles are a LOT larger than I'd imagined... 

I'll get over it... 

maybe... 

eventually... 

"Badlands 2"

I'm sure once they're flat... IF they're ever flat... they'll be really nice! 

I was further soured on the whole experience by the $59CAD I had to pay for taxes, duties, and fees on an order that only cost $210CAD (of which $35CAD was shipping!?). Now I don't mind paying taxes... I like roads... and firefighters... and other public services... but the fucking $45 "brokerage fee" UPS charged seemed like a much. Fuckers... Canada Post charged $9.95 for that service... But no, keep telling me that privatization and "competition" will mean basic services will be cheaper for me... 

So all that along with the wrinkled matts... I think I might look elsewhere for a snow or martian surface matt - or if I decide I need a different size... 

Anyway... 

Luckily I have NO SHORTAGE of heavy books, so hopefully a few days of this might sort out SOME of the wrinkles... If we get sunny days again, I could try leaving them outside for a bit... We are fully into fall it seems, today, and things are very grey indeed... 

Really want these to be flat NOW so I can get on with PLAYING Devilry Afoot or continue on with the Five Men in Normandy campaign...

Game Plan 2023 - Q3

Holy Carp!? How are we already half way through the year!? 

Lets start by looking back at the Q2 Game Plan...

Games

I didn't really have any idea what sort of games I might play for any sort of Quarterly 5x5 Challenge... I did end up getting sort of close to playing five different games, five times! And, despite only playing ONE GAME in June, played over thirty in April and May... 

Here are the games I played this past quarter: 

• One-hour Wargames x5
• Wingspan Asia x4
• Clank! In! Space!: A Deck-Building Adventure x4
• Wingspan x4
• Agricola x3
• Century: Golem Edition x2
• Tinderblox x2
• Azul x1
• Beyond the Sun x1
• Boss Monster 2: The Next Level x1
• Castles of Mad King Ludwig x1
• Cryptid x1
• Imhotep x1
• Lords of Waterdeep x1
• Shakespeare x1
• Splendor x1
• Tyrants of the Underdark x1
• Vinci x1
• Xenos Rampant x1

What I've played, so far this year... 

• One-Hour Wargames x20
• Codenames x11
• Wingspan Asia x7
• Splendor x5
• Wingspan x5
• Clank! In! Space!: A Deck-Building Adventure x4
• Agricola x3
• Century: Golem Edition x3
• Codenames: Pictures x2
• Tinderblox x2
• Azul x1
• Beyond the Sun x1
• Boss Monster 2: The Next Level x1
• Castles of Mad King Ludwig x1
• Cryptid x1
• Hellboy: The Roleplaying Game x1
• Imhotep x1
• Kingdom Builder x1
• Lords of Waterdeep x1
• Shakespeare x1
• Terraforming Mars x1
• Terraforming Mars: Prelude x1
• Tyrants of the Underdark x1
• Vinci x1
• Xenos Rampant x1

Any possibility there might be a 10x10 in there...? Certainly there could be five games I'd play 10 times this year (One Hour Wargames and Codenames I've already done, it would be easy enough to get in five more games of Wingspan, Splendor and Wingspan Asia)... If I actually got going on playing Kill Team and Warcry, it would be easy enough to get in ten games of each of those... but that's only seven. Maybe if I ended up running a role-playing game in the fall and/or another online campaign...? 

Maybe I just need to try and play some games and see what happens.  

Miniatures

I didn't get a tonne painted... and I DID buy a few things... but I don't really see any need for any more purchases in the foreseeable future (Unless I got playing 40K on the regular and decided to pick up a few Harlequins or other Aeldari to fill in holes in 40K armies...) 

Q3 Game Plan

Things are still very much up in the air. The basement renovation still drags on and there is a lot to do before it's going to be finished. Demolition is complete, the last of the plumbing has been upgraded and concreted has been repoured... But things are kid of on hold now, until the end of August, when the contractor we hired to do all the finish work is available. So, I probably won't have full access to the game room or a proper hobby area until Q4...  That will limit what kind of gaming and hobby projects that can be worked on.

Also there are a few vacations being planned for this summer. Amanda and Keiran are heading off to visit Amanda's folks and sister and her family later in the summer. Then Amanda and I are theoretically going off on a vacation of our own afterwards  (as well as maybe a few shorter excursions earlier in the summer...?) 

Still... I would like to get going on some games of Kill Team and Warcry. I'd like to finish up a few of the new kill teams and Gallowdark terrain and a few more skaven for Warcry.

Hopefully we can still play a few board games from time to time. 

Not much of a "plan"... but... It's about the best I can manage right now. 

Hopefully by Q4 I'll be back into the swing of things... 

June Games

With the end of May/beginning of June came some easing of the Saskatchewan Public Health Orders - we were now, theoretically, allowed to have TEN PEOPLE over to our house - so long as social distancing was maintained between households!? Despite all that, we did barely ANY game playing - even among ourselves. 

We did have ONE person over. Luckily our new game table is ABSURDLY huge and some measure of social distancing COULD be maintained... We decided to keep the "bubble" small and just had the one friend over, who, like us, doesn't go out much and has very limited contacts and had had his first jab. 

Amanda and I both got our second doses at the end of last week and the kids had their first at the beginning of the month and should be eligible to get their second in a few more weeks. Seems like most restrictions will be lifted mid-July, which, despite the whirlwind roll-put with the vaccines, an alarmingly high percentage of the population is just not getting them - despite being pretty readily available to anyone free of charge!? I don't know... might be keeping our bubble small for the time being. 

Kurtis came over on Friday and we played wingspan. On Friday night we tried out the European expansion. During the first game we realized, part way through, I'd accidentally shuffled all the Oceana birds in with them!? Some had already been played, but we went through the deck and took the rest out. 

Goals for Game one. I was Red, Amanda was Purple, Kurtis was Blue. 

I think I actually won this game. I don't know. I just have fun putting birds in the habitats. 

Played a second game. 

Goals for Game Two. 

I think I won this one too...? But this insane winning streak did not last long... 

On Sunday we tried out the Oceana Expansion. 

I liked it. It was fun. Kurtis won this first game. 

Goals for Game one. I was Yellow this time, Amanda still Purple, Kurtis still blue. 

Game Two. 

Game Two Goals. 

This is also the end of Q2... but maybe I'll leave that until the next post - Q3 Plans.

The Game Room

 After much stalling and dragging on and changes in plans and more stalling... The Game Room is finally complete... more or less... The rest of the basement still needs to be renovated and the scope of that has gotten much larger than originally planned/anticipated. 

Originally the room was the "Hobby Room" - where ALL games and miniatures and hobby & craft and painting supplies and history/reference books were to go. Much of that has spilled out all over the basement and the rest of the house. 

Not ALL of the game stuff is going to fit back into this room. Right now I have all the PAINTED miniatures - and MOST of the unpainted ones - in the drawers throughout the room. Most of my military history/reference books are in here. Some games - most of the miniature wargame rules and some of the  role-playing game books. 

The rest of the basement, when complete will include a art studio, a bathroom, and a TV room (which will also include my painting station, as I like to paint miniatures while sitting and watching TV and movies - often with other members of the family. But that is all a long way off before that is properly set up again. Part of the floor will be broken out later this week when the city's contractor comes to replace the water and sewer lines. When the rest takes place is really up in the air. Cost of materials have gone through the roof so I'm suggesting we wait... Amanda is, as always, insisting everything be done NOW!!! As we don't have any contracts signed, I'm king of hoping, at this point, most contractors will be booked for this summer anyway... We shall see... 

View from the Northwest corner - where one enters the room. The ceiling is rather high - for a basement - and there are two large windows in the Southeast corner - both of which open up to get a nice breeze through in the summer. Along the South wall I have some larger terrain boards and a shelf with larger terrain bits and boxes containing larger vehicles and such. 

View from the opposite (Southeast) corner, looking back at the entrance. Along the west wall are bookshelves. 

View from the Southwest corner - by the door to the closet under the stairs. those are all my miniatures in those drawers. Well, MOST of my miniatures. At least the 28mm ones. There are also a few 20mm minis in there. I do have a small amount of smaller miniatures squirrelled away elsewhere. 

View from the Northeast corner more stuff is squirrelled away in the closet under teh stairs. AT some point it all needs to be reorganized and will contain boxes with more terrain bits. Currently it mostly contains boxes of Pulpspotting, the Vimy terrain I've completed so far (4th Division's Area of Operation) and boxes of miscellany.

Terrain boards. 

At some point I was going to build a table-topper with the tabletop from the OLD game table that would fit OVER the new table for a slightly larger gaming surface for some truly EPIC miniature battles. Teh new table is about 3.5'x7' - the table-topper would extend that to 5'x8'!! The two boards that made up the old tabletop are in the next room and will shortly be hauled out to the garage to away me finiding time to clean them up, build a frame around them and paint them. (Not a bit hurry, as it doesn't seem like there are going to be any large miniature battles played down here anytime soon... 

Miniatures containers along the North wall. There are stacked on top of two "consoles" we got from Ikea (the bookshelves are also from Ikea). It is roughly organized with Fantasy over on the left and moving right there are ancients (Egypt, Greeks, Successors, Romans - and their enemies), then Dark Age (mostly centered around England - Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Danes, Vikings, Scots, Irish, Welsh, Normans, etc), the medieval,  Feudal Japan, English Civil War, Pirates and Swashbucklers, Seven Years War, Napoleonics, Assorted colonials (including Martians!) and, finally, The Great War.

Under the consoles are a few games - mostly GW box games and Hellboy.

Miniature containers on the East wall - these are mostly World War 2, Modern and Sci-Fi.

The drawers, when packed full, contain about 100-120 28mm foot miniatures - depending on basing... 

They're not ALL totally packed full.

But a lot of them are... 

Shelf on the south wall for Titans and Knights and big beasties and vehicles and terrain bits. 

The books... well... the ones I could fit in the room. 

The last two Boxing Days I wandered over to my FLGS - Dragon's Den Games - and picked up some big boxes to start some new armies... on both occasions Amanda insisted they be squirrelled away until I actually finished the Game Room. Achievement Unlocked! I now have a pile or Daemons and Snake-Ladies to assemble and paint. 

Our first game in the new Game Room was Wingspan - using the European Expansion birds.... Maybe that table it SOO big!? 

Works out fine playing this way... I love it. Going to be LOTS of space to play some of those bigger games - Railways of the World, Firefly, High Frontier, etc... 

The big table and extra room didn't help me play Wingspan any better... Ah well...

Now to get some MINIATURES on the table!